





M. 



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Class ^5"^ 5^ 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSfl^ 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR 



Within the Hedge 

The Cathedral 

Russian Lyrics and Cossack Songs 

NOVELS: 

A Modern Prometheus 

The Cuckoo's Nest 

A Cossack Lover 
The Sin of Angels 



GABRIELLE 

AND OTHER POEMS 



GABRIELLE 

AND OTHER POEMS 



BY 
MARTHA GILBERT DICKINSON BIANCHI 




NEW YORK 

DUFFIELD & COMPANY 

1913 






Copyright, 1913, by 
DUFFIELD & COMPANY 



©C1.A346487 



ffOv fiot fiaivofiivo) [xaiveo^ ahv ath^povt <T<ot^p6vti\ 



I LIFT THIS VINTAGE OF MY HEART 

TO ONE 

WHO BLITHELY DRINKS WITH ME, 
EACH JOYOUS TOAST SIMONIDES 
FLUNG LYRIC REVELLERS SUCH AS WE ! 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Gabrielle 3 

A Wanderer's Song I3 

"Autre Fois" I5 

Gypsying i6 

The Wind 17 

"Zauber-Duft" 18 

A Song of Summer 20 

A Summer Letter 2.2 

Midsummer Noon 24 

Midsummer Waves 26 

The Spider's Web 28 

The Return 29 

To a Mountain Lake 31 

Waiting for the Stage 32 

At Summer's End 35 

In Autumn Rain 37 

The Dead Hunter 39 

November Dusk 41 

In January 42 

Revolt 44 

To-night 48 

Child of Earth 49 

In Farewell 50 

His Appeal 51 

At Last 52 

Our Secret 53 

Mignonette 54 

The Song of a Slave to Her Master 55 

One Day 56 

A Last Favor 57 

A Song of Afterward 58 

The Convicts 59 

An Incident 60 

An Allegory 61 

Any Man to Any Woman 62 

Any Woman to Any Man 63 



CONTENTS 

TKGE. 

Through the Ivory Gate 64 

I In A Moon-Coloured Garden 65 

II A Dream of First Appearing 66 

III Whispered Between Dreams 67 

IV Chansonette d'un Reve 68 

V Opium 69 

VI Rosemary 70 

VII Attained 71 

VIII A Farewell 72 

IX A Lover's Song 73 

X To Sleep 74 

Hidden 76 

A Curse 77 

After-glow 78 

Afterward 79 

From a Ghost to Her Lover 80 

For a Fly-Leaf of Dante 82 

The Interpreter 83 

L'Envoi 84 

To a Ghost 85 

The Lover's Answer 87 

Allegro Con Grazia — After Tschaikowsky .... 88 

The Old Musician go 

The Last Echo 91 

To THE Cello 93 

A Street Organ Melody 94 

Unto the God of Pleasure 95 

A Club Man's Requiem 97 

Decoration Day 98 

Where God Is 99 

In a Hillside Grave-yard 100 

The Crypt loi 

The Midsummer of a Nun 102 

A Tale of Tuscany 114 

Twilight at Florence 118 

A Legend 120 

Riviera Rain 121 

In the Protestant Cemetery at Rome 123 

The Barberini Bees 124 

Brother Renuncio 125 

The Song of a Slave to Her Idol 127 

A Song of Mariners 128 

The Suppliant 130 

Cassandra on Leaving Troy 131 



GABRIELLE 



GABRIELLE 

" In this chamber Gabrielle de Latour died of joy. Here cer- 
tainly she had watched at these windows, during ten whole 
years far the return of her beloved husband from' a disastrous 
battle in the East, until against all expectation she beheld him 
crossing the court at last." 

From Gaston- de Latour. 

IN Summers withered long ago, 
Ere Ronsard to his Mistress sung — 
Mid level corn-fields of la Beauce 

Fair Gabrielle was young; 
High in her turret chamber lone 

Within the old chateau d' Amour, 
Waiting her absent Lover-Lord, 
The valiant de Latour. 

The faded centuries roll back, 

Disclose her at her casement there. 
The sunlight on her listless hands 

And on her burnished hair; 
Close on her lips she holds the past, 

Her eyes lit by a vanished face — 
Red trees in flower 'neath crimson skies 

Hot as their last embrace! 

Before her tear-spent vision rides 
Her Love — a stern crusader grim 
3 



GABRIELLE 

Wrapt in a mist of cruel steel, 

Her soul set forth with him ; 
How can she heed the cushat cry 

Or mournful plover voice the rain — 
While on her heart departing hoofs 

Renew their curt refrain? 

Her eyes see not the spires of Chartres 

Across the peach bloom of the plain, 
To her, through endless leagues of corn 

The sickles flash in vain ! 
Her ears hear neither chime nor dirge, 

Nor up the white road's quivering heat 
All through her life's long afternoon 

Or Knight or Pilgrim feet. 

This turret chamber was Love's own, 

Here the white rose of Love flared wide, 
Here the white Mass of parting said 

In silence, side by side — 
A thousand secrets fond she knows 

To bring her absent Lover near, 
A thousand magics t© beguile 

Incarnate presence here. 

No intimacy of the Faith, 

No mystic symbol eloquent. 
But broods within this perfumed place 

His fervid sentiment; 
4 



GABRIELLE 

Her heart's perpetual commune 
Suffuses colour, sound and sight, 

Illumes each portal of the sense 
With Love's reflected light. 

Above the Christ of her prie-dieu 

Her Lover's face shines through her prayer, 
O'er milk-white blossoms of the thorn 

She loves to garland there. 
O dearest sin! O sweet abuse! 

One worship with another blent 
In rapt idolatry too tense 

For Love's relinquishment! 

Mid dainty breviaries rare, 

Dim tapestries of cloudy bloom. 
The songless lute, the silken couch. 

Through countless midnight's gloom 
She watches day from yesterday, 

In pale to-morrow's fruitless lure, 
While none beneath the high White stars 

Behold her vigils pure. 

Religious are her kindred all, 

Blazoned their deed's fidelity 
In pride sepulchral on their stones, 

Devout likewise is she ; 
By white resurgent Easter morns, 

The scarlet pomps of Whitsuntide, 
5 



GABRIELLE 

The August fetes, the purple fasts 
Her soul is sanctified. 

But when she bows her at High Mass, 

Entranced adores the lifted Host, 
'Mid crested tombs of de Latour — 

He is her Holier Ghost. 
Unconscious blasphemy of Love ! 

The anguish of recovered bliss 
Transcends the priestly monotone, 

Enshrines her soul in His. 

His touch lights torches in her blood, 

This groping prayer of sense is His — 
This clutch of passion on her throat — 

This suffocating kiss — 
And dazed she sees the kneeling throng 

And on her stifled breast the one 
Bright blood drop, ravished bold from some 

Rose window by the sun. 

For celebrations thus profaned. 

No luxury of chastisement 
She spares her soft, enamoured flesh, 

On grace of heaven intent — 
By solemn industries of soul, 

By patient ministries of hand. 
She plays her role of chateleine 

Most courteous, most bland. 
6 



GABRIELLE 

Though Knight and Noble find her fair 

None can her Lover's liege beguile, 
Nor is there harper's string more sweet 

Than accent of her smile, 
Dispensing, as her rank befits. 

Her Seigneur's largess in his stead, 
She welcomes all unto his board, 

Her heart a guestless bed. 

Ah, well their homage sweeps her by, 

Light as a May-bloom careless lain 
On the slow-flowing river Eure 

That washes her domain; 
Within the cloister of her soul 

None breaks the reign of revery, 
Each drowsy hour a chaplet for 

Her ceaseless litany. 

The vassalage of Love is hers. 

The lowly love of Love afar. 
The love of rose for nightingale. 

The love of star for star — 
And yet despite her heart's duress, 

So blest she wears her Seigneur's chain 
All Love's requited lovers seem 

But meet for her disdain. 

Her mouth for wasted pleasure wan. 
And famished for her Lover's vow, 
7 



GABRIELLE 

Her senses to his passion sworn, 

His seal upon her brow, 
She stretches hands that never reach, 

She sees her fires to ashes creep. 
The snowflakes wind their pall o*er one 

Who sows but may not reap. 

The poor come daily for her dole, 

And lavish dole she never spares, 
But Jesus, merciful, perceives 

Her need more sore than theirs 
Who speak her thanks with ready tongue, 

But judge her heart unpitying — 
While on their breasts their babes lie close 

As vintage tendrils cling. 

Within her incense-laden room 

Of sacred intimacies fond, 
Amid the relics of themselves, 

Of parting and of bond — 
Sorrow and Love in her are wed ; 

Long soothing nights of moonlight dim 
Far in the East — or coming near. 

She wakes and waits for Him. 

Her thoughts are sombre as the rooks 
That hover dark o'er tower and sward, 

As morning red salutes her cheek. 
Sole greeting from her Lord, 
§ 



GABRIELLE 

And though returning harvest fills 
The fragrant bins with yellow store, 

Still up the glaring, faithless road 
Her Joy returns no more! 

When Yuletide blazes on the hearth 

And minstrds wake the echoes dumb, 
From court, from cloister and crusade 

Her kinsmen hither come, 
The festal flambeaux gaily flare 

Upon their Lady's gentle face. 
To shudder from the wraith they light 

Of spectral shadow grace. 

Ten years of pallid Winter days 

While nests lie empty neath the eaves, 
Ten years of nights of loveless sleep, 

Ten years of other's sheaves. 
From out her turret casement pent 

She sees life ebb and never flow. 
Ere Ronsard to his Mistress sung — 

Slow centuries ago! 

The mystic lilies in the close 

Than Gabrielle are not more pale. 

Nor fainting moths of early dusk 
Than Gabrielle more frail. 

When silver nightingales awake 
To lyric madness of the Spring, 

9 



GABRIELLE 

For sad as bud of barren flower 
Her hope's false bourgeoning. 

The trembling poplars touch the stars 

Beyond the crenellated wall, 
All night their leaves lie whispering 

To vex her in their thrall ; 
No serenade invites her sleep, 

No dawn-song warns of breaking day, 
Despair the only troubadour 

To guard her postern grey. 

The plain beneath its azure dome 

Laughs up to heaven, laughs up and sings 
But veiled are her romance-steeped eyes 

To blithe external things; 
To fecund earth turned by the plough — 

The eager jonquil's glad brocade — 
And floating odours that arise 

From dappled orchard shade. 

For while relaxing South winds sigh, 

To sobbing April won anew — 
Dreams are her waking, — she but dreams 

Her days vague visions through; 
Fleet as the gentle Nicolette 

Speeding to Aucassin amain, 
Her fancies coursing down th^ night 

On white feet of the rain. 
10 



GABRIELLE 

She sees Him slain, — a hero proud, 

His shield encasing soul of flame, 
His lance the curse of Saracens, 

Upon His lips her name — 
Or yet she dreams Him false to her, 

To wake distracted for her fears 
Lest Paradise should lack for Him 

Throughout eternal years. 

On some soft breast she dreams his head. 

His honour pawned to sultry charms, 
His oath foresworn, his love betrayed 

In slender circling arms; 
For eyes of night h,is foe forgot. 

Drunk in the glories of dark hair 
Unlike gold cornfields of la Beauce — 

Ah, Gabrielle was fair! 

Or does Sleep ope with glamoured touch 

Her fragile caskets of the past, 
And bid the bridegroom to the bride 

To break Love's bitter fast. 
Not once dead rapture turns to truth 

When bugles call the hunt away. 
Nor once with her he crosses dawn 

To mock the tyrant day. 

But sudden piercing through her swoon. 
Across the courtyard rings again 
II 



GABRIELLE 

That mailed footfall, save in sleep 

She harkens for in vain. 
Her joy, arch rival of Doleur, 

Confronting her with daring- eyes. 
Sends her blood surging in her ears 

As harps of Paradise. 

Love, Joy and Death combat for her — 

Ere her Seigneur can claim his own, 
Her soul's bright star breaks down the sky, 

Escapes its orbit lone; 
With one high note of ecstasy 

The jealous angel Azriel 
Sweeps upward, — bearing on his breast 

Immortal Gabrielle! 

L'Envio 

Prince, if my ballad of dead love 

Fall o'er you cold as sifting snow 
Ere Ronsard to his Mistress sung — 

Slow centuries ago. 
My own heart kindles envious, 

Howe'er the amorous flesh rebel — 
To clasp in death Love's endless dream 

As Golden Gabrielle. 



12 



o 



A WANDERER'S SONG 

NCE more to see familiar stars 
Look down through friendly trees — 
Once more to feel the heart of youth 

With May across the seas! 
Once more to see the hyacinth 

Press upward through the grass, 
To hear the plough-boy's tuneless song 
Above the furrow pass. 
-In dreams the willows silver along the rising 

streams, 
In dreams the shining valley puts on her Spring- 
tide gleams ! — 

Once more to breathe the lilac plumes 

In gusts of April rain — 
To linger with the violets 

In a forgotten lane; 
Once more to reach the low green stile 

Upon whose gentle sod, 
Those earlier travellers said farewell — 
And fared them forth to God. 
- In dreams the May-white trances the nights across 

the sea, 
In dreams the voice of Springtime is calling, call- 
ing me ! — 

13 



A WANDERER'S SONG 

Vd give the dawns of almond bloom, 

The orange and the rose — 
The misty olive terraces 
Of shadowy repose — 
I'd give the nightingale and palm 
And wander-joys like these — 
Just to go back to Spring's old throb 
And old infinities. 
-In dreams my heart is straying with May across 

the seas, 
In dreams my heart and May are one in vagrant 
ecstacies ! — 



14 



AUTRE FOIS 

^npIS not this April day one sees, 

Beguiled the way of orchard trees 
'Neath snows of bloom and starting green 
Oh, not alone this Spring I ween! 
Nor this Spring's birds the Lover hears — 
But all the birds of other years. 

Dimly the senses apprehend — 
The amber sunset's fragrant blend 
Of buried loves and dear unrest, 
That linger in the blossomed West — 
As ecstasy of Mays long flown 
To lyric heavens of their own. 

Yet, heart of Nature's mystery! 
Within each budding prophecy. 
Each songful miracle of dawn — 
Faint Springs for ever passed and gone 
Look back at us with April eyes. 
From memory's green paradise. 



IS 



GIPSYING 

"^T'OUR spirit makes a wanderer of mine! 

I cannot choose but leave my hearth and go 
I care not where nor how — 
If but on hill or sky you shine, 
At pleasure of the gipsy wind 

Like to the whirling leaves I blow! 
I cannot choose but catch your hand and go. 

The tenderness of yesterday from me 
Is gone, — the poppy drugs of passion go, 
And duties that were dear; 
I feel a tidal ecstasy, 
The savage in me calls — I hear 

My mate where e'er deep waters flow — 
I cannot choose but listen till I go. 

In green gold glamours of the early Spring 
The daffodils are dancing, — I must go ! 
In madrigals of flight 
The sea gull in me now takes wing, 
The morning madness blurs my sight. 
And when your pagan pipe you blow — 
I lock my life awhile, escape and go! 



i6 



THE WIND 

TIT E sought me by the river bank and on the moun- 
tainside, 
From tallest pines he swept the miles of frozen 
country wide; 
He would not whirl with merry storms or rock in 
empty nests, 
Or hide in drowsy woods till dawn — his troth to 
human quests. 

He spurned the city's narrow streets and climbed a 
sunless wall 
To lay his heart of solitude against my window 
small. 

rugged comrade bleak and true! — no blandish- 

ment is thine, 
Yet to far heights of distant blue thy spirit sum- 
mons mine. 

1 hear thy finger at the pane, thy voice entreating 

me — 
A snow-thatched village 'neath the stars my eyes 

bewildered see; 
My heart is answer to thy call — now let us blow and 

roam 
Above the city, down the world and up the hills 

of home! 

17 



ZAUBER-DUFT 

XXZHAT heart but fears a fragrance? 
^^ Alien they 

Who breathe in the white lilac only May; 
For there be other spirits unto whom 
Fate's kiss lies dreaming in each stray perfume! 

Who mock at ghosts of odour — poor they be ! 
Bereft the scented balms of memory, 
For unto one in April's rain-blest earth 
There starts for aye the sharp, glad cry of birth; 
And Love will find in rooms unbarred for years 
Familiar sweetness loosing sudden tears, 
Clasping the will in mastering embrace 
As in the presence of a phantom grace. 

Then there be odours pungent — fires in Fall 
The gipsying of boyhood to recall ; 
And there be perfumes holy — nay, but one 
Whose pang is like none other 'neath the sun 
To drown the sinking senses in a joy 
Beyond all time to weaken or destroy! 
Odours there be that swoon, entreat, caress — 
Elusive thrall, to doom or stab or bless ; 
Each vagrant scent that holds the breath in fee 
Doth wed the heart in Life's eternity. 

i8 



ZAUBER-DUFT 

Who fear no wraiths of fragrance — sorry they 
Who breathe in lilac odours only May ; 
For there be other mortals unto whom 
White magic wanders in each stray perfume. 



19 



A SONG OF SUMMER 

r^OME Amaryllis, Phyllis fair — 

Chloe and Daphnis fine, 
Come Strephon and come Corydon — 

Let a smooth reed be thine! 
Come nymphs and fauns and satyrs shy. 

And revel high with me — 
For Summer's at her carnival 

And bids us forth to see! 

Along the filmy woodland ways 

Pan did so recent pass, 
He left the forest trembling yet, 

Laid glamours on the grass. 
There's wild magic in the measure 

The tricksy shadows dance, 
There's a lure in every dingle — 

A hint of dalliance. 

Come shepherds, leave your bleating charge 

And follow at our call. 
Out-fleet the stream's soft winding course 

In liege to Summer's thrall; 
With madrigal and triolet. 

With reed and pipe and song — 
With rigaudon and phantasy 

Dance on in happy throng! 
20 



A SONG OF SUMMER 

Come deck your bodice shepherdess 

With aretheusa pale, 
And wind your locks with eglantine — 

Let ecstasy prevail ! 
With jonquil and with violet, 

Narcissus, fleur de lis — 
Be garlanded each reveller 

Who follows Pan with me! 

Come, crush the fern with careless feet 

And wide all durance fling, 
Youth fleeter is than hoofs of Pan, 

And Summer's on the wing; 
Love, mirth and joyance claim the hour 

In fragrant roundelay — 
For Summer holds high carnival 

And Pan has passed this way! 



Zl 



A SUMMER LETTER 

■pVEAR Absent Wanderer, think of me 

As one well lost; content to be 
Lost down a Summer afternoon, 
Beyond the call of swift or soon! 

Deep down a heavy dream of song — 
Haunting the hush in cadence strong, 
With heart-heard voices of the Spring, 
Along the silence echoing. 

Deep down a sultry glamoured glade, 
Where musky chestnut trees pervade 
With far, forgetful sorcery — 
From out their white veil's mystery. 

Lost down a Summer afternoon 
Beyond the call of swift or soon, 
With Hollyhocks to point the way — 
Dear Absent, look for me to-day! 

Tranced in a daze of shadow green. 
Whose dusk desires embrace and lean 
With hiastening step, each hour increased, 
Forever homeward to the east. 

22 



A SUMMER LETTER 

One with the breathless beauty-gloom, 
Or the light pleasure of the breeze, 
One with the sloth of sated bees, 
Faint in the hot decay of bloom. 

Through all the listless leisure sought 
By no stray crier save thy thought — 
Beyond the call of swift or soon, 
Lost down a Summer afternoon! 



23 



MIDSUMMER NOON 



•\TIDSUMMER noon! 

For one brief hour Pan sleeps — 
And Nature marvelling at the god's release 
Stands breathless o'er her shaggy deity, 
Lest aught dispel the beauty of his dream. 
Pan sleeps — 

Let shadows veil the fervent sun 
And butterflies on honeyed bosoms swoon; 
Let bees in nectars deep their voices drown, 
Nor cry of colour break upon the hush ; 
The fiercer blooms shall calm their fevered blood, 
Nor falling petal stir the dusky wood, 
And birds drop songless on the grassy shade — 
That only lulling cadences prevail. 
Pan sleeps — 

In splendid stupors burns the noon; 
The fountain to her lilies murmurs on — 
Finger on lip doth Nature boding lean 
Unto the leafy covert, where at ease 
Lies lapped in silence the immortal faun. 
Let every tender avocation cease! 

Save running water that shall mystic ward 
From evil potencies; — pause laughing breeze, 

24 



MIDSUMMER NOON 

Nor tease the forest heart at your caprice — 
Nor set the harebells ringing as you pass, 
Till Pan awakes — 

Lifts from the crumpled fern 
His tangled locks and pipes the sylvan strain 
That calls the shepherd to his errant flocks, 
The wilful goatherd from his mistress' arms, 
And bids each pastoral energy resume 
Its August ripening, its chaunt of growth. 
Upon repose no longer waits the noon ! 

Resume ye forest winds ! Ye hasting streams, 
Ye fleec}' flocks and birds and scented blooms ! 

Fountains and mortals. — All, — your songs resume ! 
Pan wakes — 

Again through glade and everglade, 
Through sacred grove and open pasturage, 
His fluting reed pipes winsome to his own 
Till echo barkens for his wandering tune. 



25 



MIDSUMMER WAVES 

XT7 E are turned back to the shore in blue legions — 
Here to sing canticles sparkling and praiseful. 
Here to exult and exalt for a season. 
Sea leagues on sea leagues, — from caves of the 

coral — 
Turning from vastness and bearing strange monsters, 
Our shambling caravans come with their burdens — 
Pebbles and shells dear to infantile mortals. 

Here we sing canticles joyous and mirthful — 
Voices grown hoarse 'mid the pitiless surges. 
Spirits bowed down to your sands by sore labours ; 
Ridden by hurricanes rending asunder, 
Hurling us on to their dooms of destruction, 
Winding their wrecks in reverberant breakers. 
Dwelling in space where the stars rock above us, 
We have held dawn on our undulent bosom ; 
Ours are the deep things, — the sea graves un- 
numbered. 
We are turned back to the shore for a season, 
Haunting your ears with the dirge of mid-ocean, 
We are the myriad vassals of danger. 
We are the derelict's pilot and lover; 
Desperate mariners sigh in our choirs — 
Mariners swept from the shrouds down our spirals; 
We have seen ships steer our course and go under — 

26 



MIDSUMMER WAVES 

Ours are the songs of the ocean's pale sirens. 

We are turned back to the shore for a season, 

Here to allure by our sinuous splendour. 

We chant the groves drowned deep 'neath our azure ; 

Gardens of wonder un-trod of the living, 

Passionless Edens eternally flowing — 

Cold scentless blossoms that live in our being; 

Neither the sun nor the moon e'er descending 

Green fathoms down where our sea-beauties tremble, 

Veiled in rare seaweeds and lit of the sea-gleam, — 

Vertical sea-gleam across moving waters. 

We are turned back in the languors of August, 
Cheering the weak by our chorals courageous. 
Cut into foam where the jealous crags stay us, 
We are the homeless, the desolate wand'rers, 
We who lift Midsummer canticles thunderous — 
Restless and wind-worn, possessed of vague demons. 
Peace is for us now and ever receding. 
Hid in the hollow of His hand that poured us 
Forth from tumultuous whirlwind and chaos ; 
Jubilant witness of mighty Jehovah! 



27 



THE SPIDER'S WEB 

"D ETWEEN the harebell and the grass 
■*-^ At Summer dawn it hung, 
The dew lay like a spangled kiss, 

So palpitant it swung: 
A film of glamour frosted o'er, 

Rainbowed by passing cloud — 
As breath of God upon the morn, 

But destined for a shroud. 

His fairy canopy out-spread. 

The artisan withdrew; 
Although a priest of beauty's cult 

He spun a lure, he knew. 
The spider loves his loomless web 

As poet loves his art, 
He wove that shining thing for death, 

A murderer at heart! 

Between the harebell and the grass 

At Summer eve it swung, 
A diagram of fatal charm 

With gauzy victims hung! 



28 



THE RETURN 

"D ACK to the farm! 

-^ Where the Bob White still is calling 

As in remembered dawnings when youth and I were 
boys, 

Driving the cattle where the meadow brook is brawl- 
ing 
Her immemorial wandering fears and joys! 

Home to the farm for the deep green calms of 
Summer, 
Life of the open furrow — Hfe of the waving 
grain — 
Leaving the painted world of masquerade and mum- 
mer 
Just for the sense of earth and ripening again! 

Down in the hayfield where scythes glint through 
the clover; 
Lusty blood a-throbbing in the splendour of the 
noon — 
Lying mid the haycocks as castling clouds pass over, 
Hearing insect lovers a-piping out of tune. 

Caught in the spell of old kitchen garden savours — 
In luscious lines retreating to slopes of musky corn 
29 



THE RETURN 

And clambouring grapes that spill their clustering 
flavours, — 
Each in fragrant season filling plenty's golden horn. 

Off to the wood lot where briar bloom runs riot 
And wary forest creature no hunter's snare de- 
ceives, 
Where virgin growth beguiles the solemn-hearted 
quiet 
With songs of Winter fires a-ripple through the 
leaves. 

Up to the bars in the twilight's soft reaction — 
Winding through the ferny lanes to barns of stoop- 
ing eaves 
Welcoming at nightfall to simple satisfaction, 
When the reeling swallow her dusky pattern 
weaves. 

Out in the dews with the spider at his shuttle — 
In that half dreaming hour that awakes the whip- 
poorwill 

And sets the night hawk darting sinister and subtle, 
E'er the full moon complacent loiters o'er the hill. 

Back to the farm! 

With the friendly brute for neighbour, 
Where youth and Nature beckon, the tryst who would 
not keep? 
Back to the luxury of rest that follows labour. 
Back to the primal joys of hunger and of sleep I 

30 



TO A MOUNTAIN LAKE 

r\ LAKE within thy clasping hills, 

^^^ E'en so a woman shadows forth her Love! 

Fond to reflect each ecstasy that fills 
The hours of gold ; or bows that arch above 
The waning tempest, to the calm that stills. 

Oft hast thou trembled, swift o'er swept 
By gusts of passion whirling over thee; 

Into thy heart regretful rains have swept; 
Thy leaden greyness or thy phantasy 
Thy sky-born impress of thy Lover keptl 

And most I love thee, when at rest. 
All through the starry vigils of the night 

Thou bearest the young moon upon thy breast, 
Cradled in broken ripples of delight. 



31 



WAITING FOR THE STAGE 

'T' HE evening wind is waking in the Elms, 

Unto the whippoorwill the thrush gives o'er, 
The hooded roads from twilight long withdrawn 
Back to their dim communing turn once more. 

Players at quoits forsake the dusty road 
And drift to haven at the village store, 

On whose worn steps an idler carves his name 
'Mid interlaced initials cut of yore. 

Nor flock nor kine bespeak an evening care, 

The labourer may let his vigils fall 
And take his ease mid gallant sparks a while — 

So well the hour makes consorts of them all. 

Here, while the farmer talks of future crops. 
Predicts a drought or drones of early blight,— 

Some country bumpkin airs his prowess bold, 
Or some pugnacious bully offers fight; 

The schoolmaster oft cracks his fabled joke, 
On vying with the local wit intent, — 

And flitting past as moths, — the village maids, 
Bashful by nature and admonishment. 
32 



WAITING FOR THE STAGE 

Oft doth a hillside neighbour, drawing rein 

For trifling barter, glib a wager lay 
Twixt yon grey Dobbin and his " Three-year-old " ; 

A hurried child forgets his jug to stay. 

Nor venerable sage nor swain new-wed, 
However may his rustic ardour burn, — 

However fond besought to hasten home, 
Once lingering, effect a swift return. 

Both church and state an ample rostrum find, 

No party ever lacks for advocate, 
Nor gentle gossip loses savour rare, 

Exchanged by weary cronies as they wait. 

Ah! theirs a ripe though rude philosophy — 
Nor fear nor avarice mar their content, 

Who seeking nothing, find the joy they crave. 
Impartial waiting on the near event. 

How jovial the hour that tops their day! 

What jests are made, what memories restored. 
What hot discussions waged, what tales retold, 

What shrewd surmise and mysteries explored! 

Now from the cottage eaves a fainting beam 
Sends forth a final sleep-inviting sign, 

As from the belfry of the meeting house, 
Tolls ominous the warning hour of nine. 
33 



WAITING FOR THE STAGE 

Soon, with a jolting swagger o'er the stones, 
The distant sound of wheels their charm repeat, 

And o'er the hilltop looms the stage at last ! 
To rattle reckless down the silent street — 

Draw up a flourish in the square of light 

Framed by the open door, — the whip lash curled 

Once more across the leader's reeking flanks, 
To herald wide this envoy from the World ! 

Since boyhood days I've seen the liners brave 
Plough up the Bay at home, — across the sands 

Spent caravans wind in at close of day ; 
Received strange convoys oft in lonely lands ; 

Yet never have I felt the World draw near, 
Its great uncertainties my fate engage, 

As when there lumbered sudden through the dusk 
That peradventure of the evening stage! 



34 



AT SUMMER'S END 

/^ F old the Summer crept on noiseless wing, 
^^^ As if by stealth toward Autumn turned her face, 
This year she makes no secret of her haste — 
Speeds her successive pageantry apace. 

Glad years when at October's fruitful stile 
Your feet to meet my own were turning true, 

How bloom and tedious vintage held me back 
From days of golden reaping, love and you ! 

But now — when parting only waits us there, 
Both hasting bird and changeful flower conspire 

To speed us to the jocund harvest moon 
Of old out-lived but not out-loved desire. 

Too swift the briar rose gave o'er, — too soon, 
Too soon the ripening grape upon the vine ! 

Scarce did the lily star the sultry pool 
When roadsides purpled with the aster's sign. 

Turn back, repent your steps of radiant bloom, 

Your green assemblage turn ! Give back those slow 

Interminable days of Summers past. 

When hope, remote but sure, had far to go ! 
35 



AT SUMMER'S END 

Too brief across the sun dial leans the sun, 
The lisping birds are prescient of their flight 

Ere scarce, it seems, they tumbled from the nest ; 
And bolder dares the cricket taunt the night. 

Each laggard of old Summers spurs us on — 
Too early creeps the dusk, the shortening days 

Wane paler toward the fateful hour, for hearts 
Whose beat is doomed at parting of the ways. 



36 



IN AUTUMN RAIN 

TXT'HAT spirit is it calling in the Autumn rain, 

That bids me cast my needle by, set wide the 
door? 
The day is troubled with its voice and on the path 
The footfall of the dead that come no more. 

To reminiscent languors now the gardens yield. 

In Spring they ardent press — in Fall resigned they 
know 
They have fulfilled the fate of Summer — now to sleep 

Beneath the lullaby of winds that strow 
The drifting yellow leaves from unresisting trees, 

To weave in mellow strands along the lane and street 
Vague Moorish patterns of forgotten suns and rains, 

A golden tapestry for Autumn's feet. 

Well hath the Spring a throbbing fever of her own, 

Waking and breaking from reluctant thralls in vain, 
Since all her prophecy at last is lulled to peace 

In Nature's sure narcotic, Autumn rain. 
O guest beloved of my heart and wailing wind, 

For you I light the hearth, entreat your will its way, 
Pile high the cones and hesitate — perchance 

That haunting spirit o'er my sill should stray ! 



Z7 



IN AUTUMN RAIN 

Let us elude to-night the intervening drear, 

While in the leaping flame hope's drooping pinions 
thrill, 

Until as Southing birds we cry, " 'Tis but a sleep, 
Ere April call us by the daffodil ! " 



38 



THE DEAD HUNTER 

A LL through the Summer days I tranquil lay, 
'^ Filled to the lips with utter peace and rest — 

The warm, sweet, slumberous breezes did not stir 

The stark hands folded weary on my breast ; 
All through the Summer nights I loved to dream. 

While moonlight wove a ghost-lore on my grass, 
Nor longed for dawn nor any restless change — 

Nor that this trance of Summer death should pass. 

But now the Autumn stands with lifted horn 

To call the hunter and the wild things all, 
My satin ceiling cramps me, — I would forth I 

Were there a door set in my narrow wall. 
O Nature, free this prisoned child of thine! 

Rest irksome grows and heaven from earth too far — 
Bid me come back to wander in the rain. 

Or shine at nightfall in the first faint star ! 

Call me to mingle with the valley mists 

That cling about the hills when harvest wanes, 

Or lie in sunshine 'neath old cottage eaves. 
Or shine in cresting cornfields on the plains; 

Let me sing seaward in the rising streams. 
Fumble my wonted latch in wistful wind — 

39 



THE DEAD HUNTER 

Let me arise in colour's leaping flame, 
Or brief renewal in the gentian find ! 

Help me elude this guarding monument 
That prates my peace in eulogistic strain, 

When Autumn sounds her scarlet reveille 
The hunter's heart harks back to life again ! 



40 



NOVEMBER DUSK 

T T PON a ridge of distant pasture height 

Merged in the symphony of coming night, 

'Mid chords and multichords of muffling haze, 

Through furze and gorse the darkness deeper wades 
O'er dim receding glades and everglades. 

Whose outlines faint elude the wistful gaze. 

In sylvan dreams the forest Lovers lie, 
Only a wraith of smoke against the sky 

Hints of the valley's humble cottage cheer, 

A baying hound — a child's voice sweet and shrill ; 
As tides of ocean flooding up the hill 

The wines of sleep and purple stupors near. 

Cut off from day's realities — the past 
Blurred by soft opiates of dusk — at last 

Intimate darkness fills our empty palms! 

Those groping hands that seek and dare not claim. 
Nirvana's peace prevails ; the mounting flame 

Of Self bowed 'neath the Angelus of calms. 

Till sudden o'er us breaks a cry of flight — 
The train ! The train ! 

And passioning cities within reach to-night! 



41 



IN JANUARY 

A CROSS the night, sifting through gaunt pine 
branches, 
Peering for lovers, youth, old Junes, o'er soon — 
Down icy paths, past rose-beds deep in snowdrift 
Over the sleeping garden strays the moon. 

The lilies do not heed the silver signal, 

Nor do the roses breathe back bliss for bliss, 

And yet no mourner at a sweetheart's graveside, 
Nor lover at a lady's casement this. 

The silence deepens ; to its chosen altars 
The light in wonder as a spell descends, 

No husky fountain lifts a sweet rejoinder — 
Nor bloom nor fragrance on this step attends. 

Faint buds of Spring lie 'neath their dazzling hillocks, 
Deep dreaming of young April's crescent frail; 

Nor moth nor firefly ply their amorous traffic 
Nought wakes within this frozen vigil pale. 



Aye there is one, — that soft her prey is stalking, 
Stealthy as Zero's kiss upon the pane — 

Through her set teeth the hungry wind is sighing, 
Nor doth she follow on the moon in vain. 
42 



IN JANUARY 

'Tis the white Were-wolf shambles through the 
shadow, 

Follows the moon with ^tna in her eyes ; 
Now " in the wolf's month " down the night deserted, 

Only brute and planet share the earth and skies. 



43 



REVOLT 

C HE turned from her hearth and its fires forsaking 

Fled wild to Nature — a mortal escaping! 
To lose human passion, her hot heart freeing — 
With Wind and River to merge her being. 

O Wind I am come ! O circling Water ! 
A loveless Pagan, behold your daughter ! 
My lips are weary of languorous kisses. 

My shoulders are burdened by arms that cling, 
The fetters of Love are irksome blisses — 
I weep and tremble when I would sing ! 

Let me race high with your gusty huntsmen 

Coursing tall tree-tops the long night through; 
Let me dance glad with the clamorous torrent, 

Veiled in the mists of her rainbow dew ! 
My outstretched arms, — you will never bind them ! 

My wandering feet you will never snare! 
My heart you will never freight with sorrow — 

My eyes you will never dim with care. 

O Wind I am come ! O circling Water ! 
O Pagan Mother, receive your daughter! 
My eyes are holden by mortal weeping. 
And my heart rebels at its own desire; 

My dreams are thrall to a Lover's keeping — 
My life consumes in a wasting fire ! 
44 



REVOLT 

But the Winds blew Northward and did not heed her, 
Hallooing hard on the track of the leader — 

The Torrent sped on to its flooding river, 
Mocking aloud through shine and shiver — 

" Turn back ! Turn back from this shrineless portal ! 
Nature is fair but Love is immortal ! 

The sky has its stars and gods above you, 
The blossom must bloom and the bird must 
fly- 
You may not venture with Wind and Water, 
Turn home sad mortal, with Love to lie ! " 



The Poet's Interlude 

Nature is sibylline, timeless and heartless, 
Her hand lies hard as a primal law. 
Though immemorial beings entreat her, 
Her suns appear and her moons withdraw. 

The prescience of Autumn, the April's trouble, 
Vanishing fragrance, wings that hover — 
What are they more than illumined transcription. 
Varying mood of a mortal Lover ? 



45 



REVOLT 

Love is the longing of purple shadow, 
Love is the glamour of golden grain, 

Love is the might of the trampling tempest, 
Love is the call of the wander-rain! 

Though you fain rebel and elude with Nature, 
In vain her sorceries 'reft of this. 
Her luring wild and her wantoning joyance 
Fade at the brink of a mortal kiss. 

Crimson of coppice and russet of dingle 
Falter or flame by Love's furtive grace, 
Dreamless the stile in the silvering moonbeam 
Till Love's light crossing to Love's embrace. 

Love is the instinct of brooding nightfall, 
Love is where Westering wood-paths lead, 
Love is the star on the flushed horizon 
Thrilling the sense with a mystic need ! 

Nature is magical, wayward, elusive — 
Her goals set far beyond man's scant hour. 
But the human touch to the wistful human 
Transcends the mark of her fateful power. 

What beauty lurks in her smile to challenge 
The curving lips for Love's wine out-thrust? 
Drink and forget in the cup of your Lover — 
Human to human as dust to dust ! 



46 



REVOLT 

Then the Wind shouted high, " I ride forever ! " 
The Stream repHed, " I run to my river ! " 
" Impotent arms you will open — to stay us — 
Our rapture shall never tarry or bide, 

Sleep if you will in our loveless chambers — 
Of sweet-mouthed mortals your dreams 
betide ! " 

She fled the forest — her deft feet escaping 
Turned to her hearthstone, her folly forsaking; 
To claim the immortal, her passion freeing — 
In the cup of her Lover to lose her being ; 
Her lips turned faint for his languorous kisses, 
Her slight arms fain for his arms that cling, 
Her hands outstretched to claim her fetters — 
To weep and tremble nor care to sing. 



47 



TO-NIGHT 

^^COMETIME — but not to-night — sometime," 
^ My heart as roses bowed by rain 
At cadence of that slow refrain, 
That tremulous, impassioned rhyme, 
" Sometime — dear Love, sometime." 

To-night, dear doubt of Love, to-night! 
Aye, garnered roses fade, I know — 
Yet those ungarnered bloom and go 
Pale and forgotten from thy sight, 
To-night — dear doubt of Love, to-night ! 

" Sometime — dear joy of Love — sometime " 
Thine eyes that kiss my soul to-night 
With spirit kisses, hot and white, 

Will close to love, be blind to rhyme — 
"Sometime — dear joy of Love, sometime." 

To-night — O Love we have to-night! 
Make sure the lock of heaven's gate 

Within thine arms, ere 'tis too late ! 

Love may a rover be at light — 

To-night, dear dream of Love, to-night I 



48 



M 



CHILD OF EARTH 

Y father was an Anchorite 
His soul to me he gave; 
My mother was a Zingara, 
Light as the dancing wave. 
The mystic vision starward turned — my father's 

legacy ; 
The scarlet passion's vagrant lure — my mother calling 
free. 

Within my cell I hear her song ; 

Within my lover's arms 
I hear the prayers my father said 
To ward from evil charms. 
My father's voice cuts through the dark and lights a 

pathway home; 
My mother's laugh rings down the world, and hearing, 
— I must roam. 

Poor haunted mortal, thus to be 
Possessed of natures twain — 
A gipsy heart, a monkish soul, 
In conflict hot and vain! 
My father's lineage was proud; stern Duty was his 

name. 
My mother men called Pleasure; — none cared from 
whom she came! 

49 



IN FAREWELL 

V\7'HITE is my colour, 

Think of me 
'Mid snows of Winter; unto thee 
The faint white lilacs breathe me yet, 
The white rose and white violet 
Forbid thy senses to forget! 

White is my colour, 

May it be 
A pledge of nearness unto thee ! 
When the white falcon seeks thy wrist, 
When thy white charger wins the list ; 
Aye, and when on thy bended knee 
The sacrament hath shriven thee, 
Say one white, silent prayer for me! 



50 



HIS APPEAL 

/^IVE me your weariest hours 

When the tides of life ebb low, 
Give me the hopeless moments 
When the light seems near to go. 

Come to me in temptation — 

Ah, never I bid you. Sweet, 
When life is glad or glorious 

And the roses kiss your feet! 

Others may drink of your triumphs 
And garner your laurels green. 

Mine be the love enfolding 
In weakness and pain unseen. 

Why should you feign to spare me 
With your smile that cheats the years 

When my heart finds all its heaven 
In the shadow of your tears ? 



51 



AT LAST 

1^ ISS down my eyes — 

lest they should wake 
Upon the vine shade of my village wall ; 
Lest as in parted dawns the slow day break, 
And heartless pleasures, weary duties call ! 

Kiss down my eyes — 

lest far from thee 
Along some luring, unsuspected way, 
A new delight or glory-flash I see, 
This one impassioned blindness to betray. 

Then cease to kiss — 

that I my eyes 
May raise to thine and know the past is past ; 
Beyond the tyranny of waking lies 
Our love's far dreamland-kingdom — won at last ! 



52 



OUR SECRET 

'VTOUR voice, to me is like the fountain fall 
In some sequestered courtyard, overhid 
With flowers of pomegranates burning red — 
Where rhythmic waters ceaseless calm and call. 

Your glance, to me is like a restless star — 
The instant ere it stakes its light on space, 

To reel as some wild centaur from its place, 
Past steadfast orbs enchained to heaven's car. 

To me, your touch — ah, no, to all save me 
Let that remain beneath pomegranates red — 

In that dim courtyard with the fountain hid, 
A listless languor of the memory! 



53 



MIGNONETTE 

VyHEN I am dead — 

My heart turned back to dust, 
All that was dear to you in me will rise 

Forever in the mignonette we loved; 
When I am dead — beyond the Spring's surprise. 

When wistful suns 

Ravish this fragrant bloom 
With one gold throe of sensuous ecstasy, 

As light that shivers deep 'neath moving waves 
Something in you will stir, for sake of me, — 

And though my heart be dust, my soul will smile, 
And you will sigh for Paradise the while. 
Would I were dead ! 



54 



THE SONG OF A SLAVE TO HER MASTER 

V^ZITHIN the courtyard, Master mine, 

Give me one little fountain glad, 
To be for Joy when I repine — 
The sister that I never had; 

To play with me when you are far — 
To chatter in my native tongue — 

Yours is a high and distant star, 
Dear Master, I am young! 

One little fountain ever gay. 

To sing the song of vanished birds, 

To break the silence of the day 

When you forget to love in words. 



55 



ONE DAY 

ILT E taught her a whole world of needs 

In one short day ; 
As one man to one woman may — 
A need of daring and of deeds, 
A need of crowns to lay beneath 

His hero feet. 
A need of tender fragrance sweet, 
And fame to offer as a wreath ; 
Of joy all overpowering, — 

Of pain, to prove 
Enduring masteries of love. 
A need of higher notes to sing, 
A need of heaven and of truth; 

Strong hands to guide. 
And braver footsteps by her side 
Across the day — aye and forsooth 
A need of covert for her weary wings — 

The need one man unto one woman brings. 



56 



A LAST FAVOUR 

C PEAK lower — do not wake 
^ This hurrying heart of mine 
That ailed the livelong day, 

And listening tense for thine, 
Remembered scarce to beat ! 

Step ghostlier — do not stir 
Forgotten miseries 

Come thou no nearer her. 

Still, and appeased at last, 

By every sign she sleeps — 
Forsaken of desire. 

Alas, the slumbering deeps 
Will tremble 'neath thy voice — 

Thy faintest whispering break 
Her calm's frail barrier. 

Ah, go ! she shall not wake ! 



57 



A SONG OF AFTERWARD 

T SLEW her heart with kisses 
And tossed her soul away — 
I balmed her sleep in blisses, 

Lest dreams from love betray ; 
I wound her in a shroud of song 

Lest pain her path forget — 
And all the empty hours along, 

With snares of fragrance set. 

Her ghost rose Queen of kisses 

To haunt my life away — 
Throughout all newer blisses 

Her phantom doth betray ; 
And now I make her dirge in deeds 

Of other women's wrong, 
Nor angels heed what anguish bleeds 

In the blasphemer's song ! 



58 



THE CONVICTS 

npHUS spake an artist, riding idly where 

A chain gang breaking stones upon the road, 
Compelled his heart from comrades brave and fair 
To closer study of the penal code: 
" Your brow is sullen and your life a curse, 
From sin ye came and innate evil bear, — 
But, brother, I who ride and laugh, do worse 
Than you who toil in open sentence there ! 
I drag a chain self-forged; nay, 'tis no jest, 
Yonder she waits, — the wife, whose silken pace 
Dwarfs my man's stride to crawl at her behest, 
While mated weaklings pass me in the race." 



59 



AN INCIDENT 

A S twilight lay upon the sea, 

A sombre priest once strayed 
Where idle groups of worldlings throng 
In vanity's parade. 

And when his habit faint across 

My lady's velvet swept, 
A flash of longing for the world 

Across his conscience crept. 

My lady's glance fell on his face. 
Bent prayerful o'er his book — 

A flash of envy for his peace 
Her inmost being shook. 

Both went their way all unaware 

Of what had each befell — 
Within his soul a stray desire, 

Within her heart a cell ! 



60 



AN ALLEGORY 

A BOVE — the Eiger rose in clouds of snow, 
The death gorge of the ice crevasse below; 
Aware of crumbling terror 'neath his feet, 
He staggered back, — miraculous retreat — 
Safe, on the rugged rocks of certainty! 
Then in a swift reactive bravery. 
He faltered near — one flower allured so fair 
That clung beneath the ledge in dizzy air. 
One crimson flower blooming amid the frost — 
And seeing her, he tottered, and was lost. 

Unmoved, the Eiger pointed to the sky. 
Below the silent glacier gave no sigh; 
The sweet and evil flower bloomed on; afar 
Hell burned the brighter for a fallen star ! 



6i 



ANY MAN TO ANY WOMAN 

WT HAT will you make of me ? 

A lawless Lover. 
True to the blood that runs in errant veins? 
Another Antony betraying kingdoms? 
An Abelard, whose crimson passion stains 
A sacred vow ? Or yet the flawless hero, 
As Parsifal eluding Venus' arms — 
Visioned beyond men's lower satisfactions? 
Some Petrarch singing whitely of your charms? 

We are a little lower than the angels, 

But hid within us all the gods abide. 

For you the sword is drawn, for you dishonoured. 

Faithful or faithless you at last decide. 

You are the Circe of our every power, 

You are the fire alike to blood and brain, 

Call us, Oh, Heart of Woman ! Call your bond-men ! 

When have your signals flashed to us in vain ? 



62 



ANY WOMAN TO ANY MAN 

^1X7" HAT will you make of me? 

A shining Helen 
Lit by Troy's blazing towers? Some pale Camille 
Dead of vain love ? Or does the phantom Laura 
Unto your lyric phantasy appeal? 
Would you but seek me for a pretty pastime, 
To dance the hours away in pleasure's lead? 
Or does a nobler vision claim your worship — 
Mother of Men thrill your diviner need? 

Faint lies our star beneath the far horizon, 
Until you curse or bless it into flame, 
Empress or Angel, Magdalen, Madonna 
Await your christening voice of pride or shame. 
Call us to kingdoms, martyrdom or passion, 
We are the answer to your inmost prayer — 
There are no depths for you we have not fallen, 
There are no heavens too high for us to share ! 



63 



THROUGH THE IVORY GATE 

^^np HERE are two gates of dream — the Ivory 
Gate is that through which unrealized visions 
pass." 



64 



I 

IN A MOON-COLOURED GARDEN 

XX7HY do you stand where the Virgin lilies 
^^ Lift their souls upon midnight space? 
What is the spell of their moon-lit silence? 
A face — only a face. 

Why do you shiver where crimson roses 
Yield their hearts in the noontide glow? 

Theirs is the sign betwixt love and slumber 
On lips I used to know. 

Why do you wait in the bronze-green twilight 
When restless- footed dancers pair? 

I wait for my dream with the dark returning - 
A heaven of dusky hair. 



65 



11 

A DREAM OF FIRST APPEARING 

A LL night I wandered down a way 

Familiar to old dreams, — yet vague estranged 
Through dread of where that sloping path might lead. 
The trees arched friendly, waters sang unchanged 
Till currents widened and my trouble grew — 
The light seemed spent, the shadow closer fell, 
There was no bridge to span the rising flood, 
No hand outstretched to break the pallid spell : 
And then, — for I had passed that way before 
In dreams, my fate I guessed; but not till You 
Stood with averted face and did not speak, 
Perceived the shallow horror was not true! 



^ 



Ill 

WHISPERED BETWEEN DREAMS 

IV/f Y little Love — should you slip from my side 
^^^ and die, 
Your soul I know would rise to bless the Summer 
night, 
A timid star, — too far from me ! Too high ! 
And I, through unkissed hours should scan the heav- 
ens bright 
Until I found you by your shivering light, 
Aware my passion even from your sky. 
Remote and comfortless that far gold spirit sign — 
Dream close, lest God allure you from these arms of 
mine! 



67 



IV 

CHANSONETTE D'UN REVE 

V\7AKEFUL our love-haunted garden sweet, 

(What have you done to my dreams, Petite?) 
Wistful the breath of the mignonette, 
(Dreams that remember when days forget?) 

The silence grows and the night is sweet, 

(What have you breathed through my dreams, Petite?) 

The amorous moonlight slumbers deep, 

(O the wild bird calling through my sleep!) 

The dew lies glad on our garden sweet, 
(What have you dared in my dreams. Petite?) 
The moth is come to the heliotrope, 
(So might a kiss through the darkness grope!) 



68 



V 

OPIUM 

T AM that one in whom worn hearts forget 

Their wasteful wage of sin-earned misery; 
Dear Circe of the sinful, I am she 

Whose face with tears of rueful men is wet ! 

My voice is slow with murmur of the sea, 

My breast like green seduction of her graves 

I bear the fevered heart, as on her waves, 
Until they drown beneath all memory. 

I have no creed of life or loyalty, 
I have no joy of daring, or disdain 

Of perfidy ; mine are the weary slain ; 
The fallen, as to love, turn back to me. 

In my betrayal certain madness lies, 
Of my desertion Emperors have died ; 

My soft embrace no bliss may safe deride. 
For I am she no man may dare despise. 

My hair is stupor; languor-shaded deep 

My eyes, and dark with unsearched mystery ; 

Men find Nirvana's prophecy in me, 
I am the timeless courtesan of Sleep ! 

69 



VI 

ROSEMARY 

A DREAMING of past lovers 
'^^ For half the night she lay, 
Some dead since many Summers, 

Some half the world away. 
Grey eyes and brown once fervent 

Sank deep into her own, 
For tears and futile longing 

So dim and wistful grown. 

Young lips smiled old caresses 

As youth came back again, 
Unto their lure she yielded — 

Incredulous and fain ; 
Yet none did chide the faithless 

For lips and eyes astray 
From troth so weary guarded 

Throughout the faithful day. 

No jealous law withheld them. 

When nearness snatched their breath 
To merge their listless being 

In waking — or in death; 
But one faint face eluded. 

The old mad, vanished way — 
And weeping for remembrance 

For half the night she lay ! ' 

70 



T 



VII 
ATTAINED! 

HIS is no dream ! 



For when in dreaming 
Love counterfeits the raptured sense, 
The sacrament of Spirit fails me 
In premonitions of suspense. 

This is no dream ! 

Or from such dreaming, 
The sun would wake me, or the rain 
Upon my heart — as tears faint falling — 
Re-bind the daybreak's silver chain. 

This is no dream! 

Nor dream of dreaming. 
This mystic flight of soul with soul — 
Starward, yet passionately mortal, 
Unquenched desire our flaming goal! 



71 



VIII 

A FAREWELL 

npELL one bead of the rosary at morn for me, 

And go your way — 
No envy shall I know of hearts you win, regret, 

betray — 
Remember me, white Spirit, when you pray. 
And from afar, as star to star might lean — 
Disdained the brief triumphant heard and seen ! 

In sleep's clairvoyant reverie dream back to me, 

Across the night — 
Let your voice calling from the inmost realms of 

Dream-land bright — 
Renew elusive echoes of delight! 
Pity alone were mine, if granted this, 
For those who touch your hand or breathe your kiss. 



72 



IX 

A LOVER'S SONG 

T LIKE a May night best to lie a'waking — 

And Summer moons to dream of hasting bliss, 
The Autumn darks for love's supreme surrender, 

Winter for sleep, please God, forgetting this ! 

Waking or sleeping, loving, aye or dreaming — 
Life speed the joy that doth all pain beget ! 

What had the year of lure or hope or terror — 
Robbed of the kiss whose shadow is regret ? 



73 



X 

TO SLEEP 
" Perchance to dream." 

/^ SLEEP, come not as you have come 

Through all the feverish years, 
Rouse not those phantoms of desire 
That waken us in tears ! 
When that long night of endless dark fit us for 

Paradise, 
Forbid Life play her drama o'er beneath our passive 
eyes! 

First childhood, dreaming deep of toys 

The daybreak steals away. 
The Lover hidden with his bliss — 
Turned wistful back to day ; 
The parted Passionate that meet to almost win em- 
brace, 
Before the waking treachery dissolves in pensive grace. 

Then sadder dreams, — where those long lost 
Faint through our slumbers roam — 

In silent marvel at our joy 
In seeing them turned home; 
74 



TO SLEEP 

So real, one follows after sleep their presence to recall ; 
So false, that all day long their shadows cast a mystic 
pall. 

In those first visions of the night. 

Whose dreams were augury 
To Sibyl and to Seer of old, 
What strange revealings be! 
What retributions wait us there! Was it our natal 

star 
That cursed our rest with haggard fears and limned 
us as we are? 

O Sleep, come not as you have come, 

With dreams so mocking sweet. 
Or so distraught that madness lies 
The way your paths entreat — 
To ours who 'neath the grasses lie, let no vain visions 

creep, 
To our Beloved may it be. He giveth dreamless sleep ! 



75 



HIDDEN 

"D ENEATH the careless jest and easy laughter 

Sad little ghosts of passion hide, 
Like anguish from old stifled dreaming 
Nestling in silence at our side. 

Mocking and pale — within the haunted shadow 
Of found too late and lost too soon — 

Across our hearts they flit impassive 
As silver seeking of the moon. 

Always they kiss — their fond arms laced and cling- 
ing— 

The while we chatter far removed, 
Dusk little wraiths of banished sweetness 

Deriding us for love unloved. 



y6 



o 



A CURSE 

UT of the East nor West 
No tender-eyed shall come 
To love thee first nor best, 

Or strike old echoes dumb. 
Out of the North nor South, 

Passion nor pain nor joy 
Shall lay to thy lips the waking mouth 

That made thee man from boy. 
Body and spirit first-love bereft, 

Whole thou shalt never be ; 
And Heaven itself shall take what I left 

Branded with love of me ! 



n 



AFTER GLOW 

111 ER dawn rose opal from a Summer sea, 

Song was her birthright and her viol strings 
Tuned to the voices of all raptured things. 
Too soon Love heard her singing — even He 
Who is all song, all joy, all agony. 
The fire of Winters and the sun of Springs, 
And with her trod the early blossomings 
A little hour, — then was a memory! 
Now Day goes in with Pindar to the feast 
Of Gods, and happy trains pursue delight; 
Across brown fields She turns unto the East, 
Where her sun rose, not where he lies to-night, 
Nor has that dew-lit presence ever ceased 
To blur all later magic on her sight. 



78 



AFTERWARD 

THOU most remaining of retreating things, 
I die of beauty felt afar from thee ! 
Each moon become a ghost of dreams to me, 
Each purple shadow, twilight of thy wings. 
There is no chord the husky cello sings 
But sets a ravening entreaty free 
Once more to mate our human harmony, — 
Each sense a prey to beauty-passionings. 

Bereft of thee, Edens are stranger grown 
Than that first nightfall on the exiled Eve ; 
Thou art become delight's pale enemy, 
Thou lingering elusive undertone — 
Desert and darkness less despairing leave 
The heart, than Beauty's cup unshared by thee ! 



79 



FROM A GHOST TO HER LOVER 

C HE who was I — long done with April sobbing, 
Lies with her face turned Eastward, rapt in the 
slow embrace 
Of reminiscent blisses, embalmed in lilac odours, 
While passing seasons trace, re-trace, their webs of 
vanished grace. 

What drew your careless footsteps here to wake her? 
She was so passionless, so tranquil dead — 
Why did you pipe your human lilt above her, 
Sweeter than all the jealous angels said? 

Why should your coming rouse her passion's music, 
Till her own heart-beat drowns the ebbing stream 
Lulling the rhythm of her lyric slumber? 
Waking, you rob her of the endless dream. 

What hint betrayed a troubled pulse within her? 
How did you feel the old desire but slept? 
Drawing her by your echo of the Springtide, 
Till mortal longing through her senses crept? 

Cruel, O Cruel ! Forcing her to listen — 
To your lost voice of Pleasure's light recall, 
She is a Ghost — I swear it ! Dead and buried — 
She dare not hear, you cannot break the thrall. 

80 



FROM A GHOST TO HER LOVER 

Go! For her wistful spirit may not wander 
Forth to you o'er the April hills again, 
Though you may breathe her intimate in shadow — 
Though you may hear her in the fragrant rain. 

She who was I — long done with blossomed twilights, 
With her fixed smile vowed rigid unto a further dawn. 
The plighted one of Gabriel and deep of death 

enamoured — 
Shivering hears you pass, — re-pass, — and prays you 

to be gone. 



8i 



FOR A FLY-LEAF OF DANTE 

PASSIONLESS Dante! Hades' warning pain 

Lost power when you left pale Francesca there 
Within her lover's arms. What wan despair, 
What exile haunts those hearts whom Love hath 

slain — 
In death condemned to love that dreads no wane 
Since he is Paolo — and she most fair? 
Sensuous-souled and mystic-sensed to share 
Their dream, nor deem it Paradise in vain I 

The sadder shades in wistful torment gaze 
As their young forms curved with the yielding grace 
Of flame beneath desire's swift breath embrace — 
While each, the other's wonder doth amaze. 
For sake of arms that cling and souls that kiss 
Perdition found together were but bliss ! 



82 



THE INTERPRETER 

ALAS ! the Poet sings of love in vain 
To those who nothing of love's torment know ; 
Who cannot listen sighing " Even so 
I burned for Philomel " — " Thus was I fain 
To grant the pleasure of my shepherd swain," 
" His eyes were thus," — " Her mouth was sweet and 

slow,"— 
Each heart rekindled to a former glow 
That through reflected passion flames again. 
But Love, how came Rossetti to rehearse 
Diviner intimacies all our own? 
These tears he weeps are tears long shed for you, 
The languor ours his shadow lines intone, 
And our despair that makes the heart beat through 
Each word, — till ours not his the haunting verse! 



83 



L'ENVOI 

T WEAR no rue for the days that were, 

Days of delusion as keen as pain — 
Full of folly and passion and song, 
Theirs was not rapture spent in vain. 

What should I dream in the days that are, 
Days of awaking to lonely truth — 

If the days that were had never been, 
Steeped in their yellow wine of youth? 

What were the vows that we left unsworn. 
In our Fool's paradise, Love and I? 

What random sweet under moon or sun 
Did our lips hesitate to try? 

Twixt the joy of then and the calm of now, 
Strange seas of fathomless being flow, — 

I wear no rue for the days that were, 
In the leisurely afterglow ! 



84 



TO A GHOST 

COUL of passion, mirth and tears, 

Spirit of the vanished Spring, 
In your marble stateliness 
Do you hear me as I sing? 

Doe3 my heart-beat reach your dream? 

Do the Hlacs tinge for you? 
Are they vanity at last. 

All the sweet things that we knew ? 

Kisses on your lips of dust. 

Even mine, — would naught avail, 

Since between us, Loved and Lost, 
Death has dropped the arras pale. 

If I left the world to-night, 
What my welcome out in space? 

Should I find you, know you there 
By the tears upon your face ? 

Ghost of Summers vanished long. 
Folded hands no more caress — 

Should we make of sorrow, song? 
Poesy of weariness ? 

8s 



TO A GHOST 

Do you hear me while I call ? 

Drink with me the spirit wine? 
Once you swore your soul the slave 

Of this flaming soul of mine ! 

What your fond vocation now ? 

Wraiths of women wan and fair, 
Do they waft you, — earth forgot — 

Though eternal wastes of air? 

Did your vows and longing cease? 

Is your spirit bond or free? 
Crueller than Death this peace — 

Creeping betwixt you and me! 



86 



THE LOVER'S ANSWER 

THE Poets whisper " Love is swift to ashes " — 
"The roses fall — our hearts to time must 
bow " — 
We kissed, and mocked them, as our passion deepened, 
Must we accept their pallid verdict now? 

Was it for us to follow lone and sighing 

Where husky voices from their graves deride? 

Accept the burden sore of lover's yearning — 
Dolours and tears and wasteful dreams, untried? 

Nay, if we knew of their lost Springs one dawning, 
If Love one little moon has turned her face 

Un-veiled, — ours be their sentence sad and final, 
But ours their legacy of golden grace ! 

For us the flower ! We caught the raptured cadence ! 

We twined with Love the garland way of youth ! 
Ours to interpret by that lyric moment 

The beauty and the pity of their truth ! 



87 



ALLEGRO CON GRAZIA 
(The Symphony Pathetique of Tschaikowsky) 

AT the silvering rim of darkest dawn 
Still my wistful Lover lingering sate, 
Moon and stars and rapture gone — 
By my grave dispassionate ; 

Sifting through his fingers warm 
Ashes of my heart and hair, 
Ghosts of sense set free at last 
Wantoning upon the air. 

(Patise) 
Envious Morpheus binds no jealous dream 
Closer than those amorous mortal hands. 
— Can it be remembered tears 
Cloud the seraph sarabands? — 

Lips that kissed but yester-year 
Muted now in smiling frost, 
Sighing through the cypress trees 
For the taste of pleasure lost. 

(Sound of dry leaves falling) 
Ye, who shimmering flaunt in life's bright zone — 
Beds inviolate now await your mirth, 
Ye shall wed as I am wed 
With the sullen arms of earth ; 
And your Lovers vainly seek 
88 



ALLEGRO CON GRAZIA 

In some fickle paraphrase, 

Groping futile to forget, 

Haunted by a vague malaise. 

(Sound of wind in bare branches) 
Death — the unfaltering sower casts his seed, 

Time — the unhindered turns his dripping glass, 
And the sands that run between 
Hearts of women 'neath the grass. 

Unto them be Paradise! 

Unto me, my Lover there — 

Sifting through his empty hands 

Ashes of my heart and hair ! 



89 



THE OLD MUSICIAN 

llJE dreams of youth, 

He dreams of love, 
And while his fingers touch the strings, 

The fitful sighs of passions past 
Flit o'er his soul on gusty wings. 

A random sob, 

A sudden tear — 
May find their echo in his chord, 

Yet while he plays — the world is young! 
You scant his joy who swift applaud. 

Ah, wake him not ! 

The world is old — 
The world is cruel, — while he plays 

Happy he is and well beloved — 
The gallant of his golden days ! 



90 



THE LAST ECHO 

\T7HAT cadence of the world's delight will linger 
on, 

When all my errant wanderings be dust and done? 
Haply the benediction soft intoned at Rome, 
Losing its way in cloudy incense 'neath the dome ; 
Or when from slender towers escape the cloistered 

sighs 
Of vesper bells to ring down oleander skies ; 

Or thud of running Cossack horse on morning grass, 
Chilling the startled blood beyond the bugler's brass. 

Perchance the nightingales of Greece as passion 

swayed 
They sang the deathless sting of love from out the 

shade ; 
Or baleful cuckoo's troubling voice, forboding ill 
When shadows crossed the sun at noon, from glade 

to hill 
Of those enchanted deeps of leafy Fontainebleau, 
Where romance lends a nest to wandering dreams, — 

ah, no ! 
Nor doth the sea repeat it as her flood subsides, 
Drawn from her moonward longing by her jealous 

tides. 



91 



THE LAST ECHO 

Nay, none of these within my soul will linger on 
When the last ravishment of sense be dull and done ! 

Rather a human love word, fainting on its start 

Across the distance from thy lips unto my heart ; 
Nor yet the wistful word that swooned upon the 
wing, 

But echo of our raptured silence following. 



92 



TO THE CELLO 

THOU who hast sought as we — and never 
found — 
And seeking still doth haunt the Shades of sound, 
We hear thy footfall thread the darks of pain, 
Through crypts of Being wander forth again. 
The sea reverberates within thy chorded strings, 
Her swimming ectasies and fair dead drowned 
things ; 
The wind doth sigh with thee from off far Pisgah 
heights, 
Fraught with the trembling mystery of forest 
nights, 
Ranging through starry passions unassuaged and wise. 

The Poet's soul thou art, — his hell and paradise. 
Throughout our buried life a wanderer divine. 
Bliss cannot bar thee out or agony confine; 
Thine adorations lift a daring breath 
Across the barricades of love and death ; 
Thou art to us what thou canst never know — 
The lifted veil of beauty here below. 



93 



TO A STREET ORGAN MELODY 

TJ^ LUNG out upon the air through mists of snow, 
•'■ Straight to the heart it rises from below, 
That song so late Love's own! 

A year ago 
The world went mad beneath its subtle sweet ; 
Nothing so sad save one girl's face I know — 

Wherein remembered beauty lingers, though 
No longer queen of courtly revels now, 

Grown sordid, half-desired, she as thou 
Has wandered from Love's halls upon the street ! 



94 



N 



UNTO THE GOD OF PLEASURE 

'OT all the Roman revelries forgot 

Of mad Caligula, who did his world out-dare, 
Enamoured to the lips of favourites and hot 

With lusty wine and tyranny, compare 
With him my lute would sing,— the God of Pleasure. 
Sing my lute ! Wake to some frenzied measure I 
Feasters jaded, 
Roses faded. 

Crystal philtres — what comes after 
Fillets twined with love and laughter? 

Diana's temples on the far Mgean, 

Nor Dionysus' bacchanals in green array — 

Have raised their Gods a more delirious paean. 
Than we who reel at Pleasure's call to-day. 

Hail the immortal tyrant, mortal Pleasure ! 
Sing my lute ! Ring out a pagan measure ! 

Passioned glances, 
Siren dances, 

Harp and viol — what comes after 
Kisses wet with love and laughter? 

Cruel the despot is,— though outwardly 

His sceptre marks the beat of every man's de- 
sire — 

95 



UNTO THE GOD OF PLEASURE 

His empire to the grave discerns no boundary, 

His smile is bright as purgatory fire. 
Sing my lute the chariot wheels of Pleasure ! 
Sing my lute ! Ring out a brazen measure ! 
Neighing courser, 
Bravos hoarser, 
Red arenas — what comes after 
Gilded death and love and laughter ? 

Loved as no monarch e'er was loved, — in vain ! 

From crown to lowly cot his tribute he pursues, 
From every careless heart that follows in his train 

He wrings the payment of his poisoned dues. 
Wail my lute! Deplore in doleful measure 

The ravages of our mad tyrant Pleasure! 
Wail the crushed grape and fevered brow — 
Wail the spent will and broken vow — 
Wail the swift youth of squandered treasure 

Bowed in the vassalage of passing Pleasure ! 



96 



A CLUB-MAN'S REQUIEM 

\T7 ARREN has gone ; and we who loved him best 
Can't think of him as 

" entered into rest." 
But he has gone ; has left the morning street, 
The clubs no longer echo to his feet, 
Nor shall we see him lift his yellow wine 
To pledge the random host — the purple vine. 

At doors of other men his horses wait. 
His whining dogs scent false their master's fate ; 
His chafing yacht at harbour mooring lies ; 
" Owner ashore " her idle pennant flies. 
Warren has gone — 

Forsook the jovial ways 
Of Winter nights — turned from his well-loved plays, 
The dreams and schemes and deeds of busy brain, 
And pensive habitations built in Spain, 
Gone, with his ruddy hopes ! And we who knew him 

best 
Can't think of him as " entered into rest." 

So when the talk dies out or lights burn dim 
We often ponder what is keeping him — 
What destiny that all-subduing will, 
That golden wit, that love of life, fulfil ? 
For we who silent smoke, who loved him best, 
Can't fancy Warren " entered into rest." 

97 



DECORATION DAY 

P^LAGS and the band and marching — 

Of faithful veteran feet, 
Fathers, young men, and children 
With voices shrill and sweet ; 
And Lincoln's spirit marching in every shining line, 
And Lincoln's peace and freedom lit with the smile 
Divine ! 
Flags and the band and marching — 

Banners that proudly wave, 
May, green upon the meadows 
And on the soldier's grave ; 
The boys in blue are ashes 'neath the lilacs on their sod, 
But their souls are free forever with Lincoln and with 
God! 
Flags and the band and marching — 
And the drum-beat's steady throb. 
Pipe on above, O Robin, 
To drown a sudden sob ! 
The laurel wreath for heroes dead ! And a cheer for 
all the brave 
Who march with Lincoln's soul to-day to liberate and 
save I 



98 



WHERE GOD IS 

^^OT only in the meetinghouse 

-'^^ That tops a windy hill, 

Where droning psalm and discourse long 

Warn of His awful will ; 
Nor in the hushed cathedral gloom 

Replete with mystic sign, 
'Mid kneeling worshippers devout, 

We hear the heart divine. 

But when the twilight sets a star 

On heaven's amber rim, 
When oceans rave or tempests roar 

Their first creation's hymn ; 
In some undreamed-of providence, 

Or mortal contact dear, 
In some lone last extremity — 

We find his presence near ! 



99 



IN A HILLSIDE GRAVEYARD 

ACROSS their graves impartial shines the sun, 
In that community of buried life 
Where each, when he his best had done, laid down 
His passing triumph, weariness and strife. 

Neighbours they lived, who still as neighbours sleep, 
And oft opposed for church and state they strove - 

While each some measure won of that which man. 
In his brief vision, calls renown and love. 

Across their graves impassive smiles the moon, 
Whose paler light harmonious balms their fame 

And writes strange shadow legends on their stones. 
To cheer the waning portent of a name. 

The ends to which each gave his years, survive ; 

A few remembering hearts remember yet — 
Beyond this common mortal elegy 

Nature must justify, when men forget. 

Across their graves impartial shines the sun. 
The moonbeam lies on snowdrift as on sward ; 

May God's eye pierce this lowly neutral sod 
And souls like theirs distingfuish and reward ! 



lOO 



THE CRYPT 

T>ENEATH the edifice that men call Me — 
^ Whose minarets attract the setting sun, 
Whose portals to the passer-by are free, 
Abides another one. 

The heartbeat of the organ throbs not there, 
To jar the heavy silence of the soul ; 

Nor low amen of alcolytes at prayer. 
Nor bells that ring, or toll. 

Unsought, undreamed save by a solemn few, 
Who with a lantern lit of love descend — 

To find the buried arches grim and true. 
On which the walls depend ! 



lOI 



THE MIDSUMMER OF A NUN 

I — July 20th — The Virgin's Eve 
II — July 22nd — St. Mary Magdalen 

III — July 23rd — St. Liborio the Bishop 

IV — July 24th — St. Christine the Virgin 
V — July 25th — St. James the Apostle 

VI — July 28th — The Feast of the Martyrs 
VII 



102 



I 

THE VIRGIN'S EVE 

AT Vespers yesterday, I swore to say 
A rosary each time my heart forgot 
Its vows and thought love's wayward thought again. 
The stained glass Saints in vivid choirs looked down, 
Bathed me in fixed and abnegating smiles; 
Saint Stephen in his myrtle robes approved 
That love was guile, each time my eyes obeyed 
The inviting arms of that great crucifix 
That hangs between his window, and the one 
Of fair young Abel stripped for sacrifice. 
As bird escaped the snare of worldly ill, 
My soul unfettered soared on holy wing. 
In rapt communion with the Purified. 
Alas ! The Priest's last intonation fell — 
And just from habit, still upon my knees, 
I sinned. 

I prayed, not as a Sister prays 
For sinners lost outside the cloister peace — 
But that old scarlet prayer of joy for him ! 



103 



II 

SAINT MARY MAGDALEN 

"ITZHAT penance is there done for love's dear sake, 

So sore as putting love away, with lone 
Committals of forgetfulness? I said 
'* Hail Mary ! " o'er a hundred times last night, 
Found consolation in Our Lady's name ; 
Her seven sorrows entering into mine 
Drove the forbidden thought from out my cell. 
I watched it furtive through the grating slim 
Waft upward to the far oblivious moon; 
Wondering if Saint or God shone in that vague 
Benignant face I worshipped as a child. 
If God is love, how strange he should condemn 
Our love as mortal sin ! He might create 
Us as the Virgin lilies chaste and pale, 
Performing rites of light and holiness 
And fragrant incense white, — yet we are formed 
To yearn for human touch, prayer of the sense, 
A liturgy whose " amen " is a kiss — 
Be deaf O Heaven ! Forgive ! 

Sad women Saints, 
Of ye alone henceforth I supplicate, 
Till washed and blotted out this secret fault. 
By all your passions past, your martyrdoms, 
Grant me to hate as God would have me hate ! 
Nor spare the last bright vestige of a dream! 

104 



Ill 

SAINT LIBORIO THE BISHOP 

T> ETWEEN the holy offices all day 

I never left the altar, where before 
That crucifix by some dead master-hand, 
In silent hope of mute deliverance 
I knelt. On shadow avocations wont 
The black-robed Sisters often went and came — 
I dared not leave the shelter blindly sought 
Beneath the greater agony of One 
Who loved and suffered, just to spare the Lost 
Their dread eternities. Before His wounds 
Of thorn and spear my woman's hurt allayed; 
Though His wide love for all a sinning world 
Is not the same as one sharp dagger cut 
That knows its way familiar to the heart, — 
The love one woman suffers for one man 
A little better or a little worse 
Than all the rest, — as may be, which to her 
Is nothing, as the world's ingratitude 
Was nothing to its Victim slain to save. 
O face upon the cross, you could forgive! 
And he I loved could not. You talked serene 
With that light woman by the wayside well, 
You sent unscathed the idle Magdalen — 

105 



SAINT LIBORIO THE BISHOP 

Yet such divine compassion leaves me cold ; 
The soul's high Bridegroom offering in vain 
Ethereal espousals to efface 
Indulgence from my passion-clouded heart. 

Again my vow foresworn? Perdition's thought 
Would violate the sanctuary's peace? 

tortured face above, no added frown 
Upon that bleeding brow for such a nun? 
Those pinioned arms spurn not the haunted faith 
Of her who seeks some compromise twixt love 
And heaven? The gaze is still of pity? Then, 
Let me be wicked, lost, but hear the truth — 

1 love him best ! 

Now smite me to the dust. 



io6 



IV 
SAINT CHRISTINE THE VIRGIN 

AT matins in humility abased, 
As turned to stone by knees insensate pressed, 
Before the empty hospice of my heart 
The long years seemed as endless highways stretched ; 
Whereon as pious pilgrim faring forth, 
At each poor wayside Calvary I paused, 
In sacred fancy sought their shriving blest. 
From all consuming, unangelic loves. 
Till Satan, envious of sweet innocence. 
With his insidious subtleties drew near — 
And moved the sad Madonna in her niche 
Above, to utter weary blasphemies. 
As one distraught I heard her prayer — 
** Pity me, God ! the woman lonely within the shrine ! 
Sick with the lavished incense, worshipped as one 

divine ; 
Canonised, blest, forgotten — on prayer eternal fed, 
Sated with supplication, starving for daily bread! 
These hands nor clasp, nor conquer, uplifted to my 

throne ; 
Nor lips of little children shall ever warm my own. 
Pity me, God! the woman, Mother of Sorrows and 

pain! 
Loose me from adorations, make me a woman again I " 

107 



SAINT CHRISTINE THE VIRGIN 



Oh, white-coifed Sisters, was your calm so bought? 

Beneath your folded hands are craters hid? 

Oh, Convent Mother, scourge me, let me serve 

The lowest ! Be the least ! So I dispel 

The curse of pliant Eve upon me laid, 

The eternal woman, quick at thought of him ! 



io8 



V 
SAINT JAMES THE APOSTLE 

AT Benediction suddenly they came 
And bade me take my place within the choir. 
Sister Beata being stricken hoarse, 
And my voice of all others most like hers. 
I had not sung since — sole my Lover knows 
What place, what hour. 

Ah well, I had no choice. 
Obedience is the heart-beat of a nun. 
But when the organ's brave Magnificat 
Accosted space, — swept up on wings of glory 
I heard my own voice music to the stars — 
Angels or demons caught me, as I swung 
Above high heaven, above these human bonds 
That wound me for Christ's sake. My psalteries 
Inflamed, lit torches that set all the dome 
With love's immortal pageantries ablaze. 

The consecrated canticles I sang, 
Yet vibrant with the love a woman spills 
As sacred ointment o'er the feet she laves ; 
Faithful though men deceive, changeless in change, 
Through words that phrased divine fidelity 

109 



SAINT JAMES THE APOSTLE 

Unto a world where all beside must fade, 
With shameless rapture of the Seraphim, 
I sang the love that never was, — sang out 
The love of which we evermore must dream 
And wake dissatisfied. 

The measure broke — 
To fevered lips o'erflowing cups I held; 
The youth in us that will not die, I hymned, 
The purple passions and the simple sweets, 
The dawns no day can follow or fulfil, 
A languid face faint 'neath love's ministries — 
Eternal fragrance and eternal pain, 
Eternal April and eternal love, 
Seen through symbolic rainbows of glad tears! 
Then whispers, — moving us to wonderment 
If past the power of sense or self exists 
A good no passion and no love conceive? 
Till voices faltered — grew hysterical — 
The candles flickered — dropped into the dark- 

Thus was I silenced by supreme decree, 
Bade evermore beneath a raven robe 
To strangle that untoward nightingale 
Transfiguring their dun beatitude 
To vivid accents of apostasy. 
Kyrie Eleison ! God's will be done ! 



IIO 



VI 

THE FEAST OF THE MARTYRS 

/^ ONFESSED, admonished, absolution given, 
The exacted penance to the utmost done — 
Nay more, — indulgence won in grim excess ; 
Ravished by self-inflicted punishment — 
Fasting and praying till by force they strove 
To gently draw me from my orisons — 
My spirit broken, spent but pacified 
Partook the celebration of the Mass. 
The festal hues of vestments blent confused; 
A myriad of sacred candles streamed 
O'er undulating ministrants who served 
Devout, the radiant altar's mystic feast. 
The cadence rose and fell ; mute acolytes, 
Symbolic genuflection, postured prayer 
Proceeded rhythmic each from each, then hush - 
Discordant jangling of a startled bell 
Proclaiming elevation of the Host. 

Beneath my downcast eyes a light mist swayed ; 
Within, gold-haloed faint the bitter cup! 
Renunciation's cup that may not pass 
Undrained — a blue flame circling at the brim, 
Extended by unseen, supernal hands. 
And for the first time, nun at heart, I wept. 

Ill 



VII 



"DUT afterward! What dreams unsanctified 

Suffused that vision of Gethsemane! 
How may a soul o'er Powers of Dark prevail, 
If after strict observance of the Rule, 
Night opens paradise renewed in sin? 
Wide-ranging passion and the steady vow 
Alike betrayed to venial carnivals, 
By Foe in flame 'neath iris-hued disguise! 

No Vestal I, save that my spirit fires 
Incessant burn, — not unto heaven, but those 
Forsaken altars of the starving sense, 
Where beauty's various wonderments entreat. 
No " Pax Vobiscum " shields unconsciousness, 
In vain the " Tantum Ergo " warns between 
Our phantom adorations each of each, 
The " In Excelsis ! " echoing supreme 
To Love's mad miracle that turns to wine 
Fit for a marriage feast, the mournful tides 
Of cloister sleep. I was not cloister-born, 
Nor Bride of Heaven to keep celestial watch 
Beneath Midsummer's silver-vigiled stars, — 
And, rid the fear of Purgatory's wage, 

112 



I trod the golden meadows of the Gods, 
The nun's diurnal Virginals transformed 
To lawless bacchanals of dream. 

The bells 
Recalled me to my pallet bed, at dawn, 
My arms outstretched in semblance of a cross 
In my left hand the rosary close clasped. 



113 



A TALE OF TUSCANY 



P RAISE to the eternal Maker of all men! 

Praise Holy Mary and the Trinity! 
Praise our Lorenzo the Magnificent, 
And praise to ye, gay masking Florentines, 
Ye youths and maidens who make revel here, 
To hail the Spring's return o'er Tuscany ! 



Attend unto my tale — 'tis simply sung, 
The plaintive folly of a youthful monk, 
Too soft of heart and young of sense, become 
Enamoured of the listless Lady Moon. 
With litanies long strove he to distract 
This mystic passion from his soul away — 
But how his torment fell, it is my tale 

Pacing one eve, in pious fervour wrapt. 
His eyes above his breviary strayed — 
And he in consequence did soft perceive 
Fair Mona Luna bathing in the stream ; 
The Arno's murmuring courses glorified 
Thereby. He was a youthful monk, unproved 
By such device as tried Saint Anthony, 
Nor guessed to lend unto a bathing nymph 
His vision vowed to God, was deadly sin. 
And as he watched, his passion mastered him,- 
Trembling as tiny ripples on the shore — 

114 



A TALE OF TUSCANY 

But deepening as the silences mid-stream, 
Till when far out she seemed to slip beneath 
The shallow surfaces, her soul asleep — 
In agony of fear lest she should drown, 
His saffron frock he doffed to follow her, 
Just as an aged Father, late turned home 
From some last office read a dying saint 
No doubt, — laid warning hands on him. 

Ah, he 
A youthful brother, — guessing not his sin, 
And penitent, — may our Lord pardon such! 
Yet who shall say if his knees served aright 
Indulgence for his craving eyes to win? 
For oh, the Donna Luna was unsworn 
To chastity, obedience or pain ! 
No mortal vow kept she, but fair and white 
And amorous at heart, perhaps she cried 
" Alas Madonna mia ! Exiles we — 
Will no man wed with thee or me ? Alas ! 
For us twain supernatural, removed 
From mortal mating ; loveless and unloved ! " 
I say perhaps she cried, — for none may dream 
The secret faith of woman, sinner, saint 
Or moon. 

But he — through nights of rain he prayed — 
And rose a proven monk. With orison 
And rosary he wore his days away ; 
Vespers and aves shrove him, till at last 
One Summer midnight from the chapel dim 
Unto his narrow cell he passed, — to find 



A TALE OF TUSCANY 

Her lying on his pallet bed — her smile 
The calm white smile of passion after death; 
So silvery and soft she came to him ! 
Ah, Mona Luna knew it was a sin — 
The open casement lured, — she entered there 
And with her came the breath of Summer night, 
Firenze's flower-scented bride. Tube-rose 
And jasmine perfume swift o'erturned his sense. 
He swooned upon his wayward Mistress' breast — 
A gentle victim of her ghostly wile. 
Then came a life of madness ; day 'gainst night. 
" Too sore he fasts ! " the holy brothers cried ; 
" Too long his vigils ! Now o'er ripe for heaven 
The fires celestial hover round his head ! " 
Paler he grew ; within his eyes there seemed 
To strive a light of hell and paradise. 
Hectic his flush — his rosary heavier through 
His trembling fingers daily slipped its weight — 
And every bead petition was for night ! 
Midsummer passed, — 'twas on Saint Martin's eve 
The end befell ; as usual he crept 
From shadow of the altar to his cell. 
His Mistress waiting with her phantom guile 
To take his shaven head upon her breast; 
But stay — a golden jewelled chalice out 
The sacristy he bore, and with it knelt; 
While on the ruby's blood and opal fire 
She laid her kisses, till they overflowed 
With beaming ecstasies the sacred cup. 
" So will I drink thee. Sorceress ! " he swore, 

ii6 



A TALE OF TUSCANY 

" Drink all thy smile and my distraught desire ! " 
And wildly drank he — then with closed eyes 
Insensate fell upon the flagging cold. 

They found him so when matins failed his due; 
Dead, unconfessed, unshriven and unblessed, 
A heart of Tuscany beneath his frock. 
Now of his legend there remains unsung 
Only that on the tombstone of a monk, 
Within a cloister yard Dominican, 
The moon doth constant lay her pale embrace — 
Doth love to dwell upon the name of one 
Long canonised a visioned Saint. 

To him, 
A youthful brother, guessing not his sin. 
And penitent, may our Lord pardon much ! 



117 



TWILIGHT AT FLORENCE 

AGAIN the fiery fingers of the scarlet creepers 
write 
Their brief Autumnal message on the wall of 
Eremite, 
Of villa and of vintage, and again the orchard sees 
A low white moon entangled in her mesh of olive 
trees. 
Down the slopes of Bellosguardo the grape leaves hold 
the sun, 
While through the inner cloisters wan the purple 
shadows run ; 
And wide-horned oxen, homeward turned, stride 
rhythmic, cheek to cheek. 
Fit for the sacrificial pyre of beauty-loving Greek. 
Somewhere a sudden bursting of pomegranate 

hearted song 
Such as to sultry lover throats of Italy belong! 
E'er over dome and palace night wraps her silken 
husk, 
Fiesole's enchanted lights come twinkling up the 
dusk ; 
The Arno yields another day to dreams of afterglow, 
And by the open Roman gate the Westering hours 
go. 
Climb, climb my lusty lion on the grim Bargello vane, 



TWILIGHT AT FLORENCE 

You will not reach the sky in time, be you however 
fain! 
Already die the distant fires behind the cypress 
trees — 
The vesper bells fall silent as the sleeping centuries ; 
While empires sink to ashes in the ragged sunset bars, 
Over Galileo's tower swing Galileo's stars. 



119 



A LEGEND 

'"' I ""IS said that they who once have heard 
_ -*• The bells in Life's high minster ring, 
Heed not the chimes that cry the word 
Of Avignon's young happening. 

The bell of death — the bell of birth — 

Reverberate within the soul, 
While gaily swing the chimes of mirth 

Or soft the vesper summons toll. 

From angelus to angelus 

'Tis said their hearts are Inward bowed; 
Though outward seeming lifts no truce 

Amid the gay or toiling crowd. 

Hushed may the pealing fall — or fling 
Glad hail unto the breaking day; 

Clear on the startled soul they ring — 
The bells of Life's old minster grey! 



1 20 



RIVIERA RAIN 

THE April rain slants southward 
Across a silver sea, 
The burden of its murmur 
A tropic threnody. 

It dallies in the vineyards, 

The orange scents pursue; 
It wanders 'mid the olives 

Where hyacinths are blue, 
It lingers in the almond trees 

To flush them hues of dawn, 
The jasmine dreams her lover 

Has errant come — and gone. 

It nestles with the violets — 

In every footfall free 
A vague beloved presentiment 

Of immortality ; 
Where'er it lists to wander, 

Forever in my heart 
It falls upon a far sweet grave 

To bid the flowers start. 

Summon the light anemone, 
Thy fragile beauties all, 

121 



RIVIERA RAIN 

Those pale attendants of the dusk 
That wait upon thy call ! 

Bid them come forth in victory, 
Their ghostly fragrance fling 

To cheer the mortal dust beneath - 
Thou Gabriel of Spring! 

Go, April rain, sing seaward — 
Beyond the barren wave 

Thy gentler destination, 
A far sweet hillside grave. 



122 



IN THE PROTESTANT CEMETERY AT ROME 

'^TT^IS here, where inland tides through cypress trees 

-*• Flow from dream isles of soft Sicilian name, 
In wave-taught accents sighing whence they came, 

Weaving green songs and pagan sorceries, 
That Shelley's restless heart finds dear repose 

Near Keats' young dust strewn o'er with purple 
bloom. 
No loveless rigours mortalise their tomb, 

Nor Wintry winding sheet of Northern snows; 
Abiding favourites of the fickle year, 

Oft may the signs of vernal solstice change. 
Spring and her violets will never range 

Faithless to Love's enamouring atmosphere, 
Where stoicism wastes its chilling breath 

On these who 'neath the ivy leaves are laid, 
And all who wander questing in their shade. 

Within these lyric haunts of Summer death. 



123 



TO THE BARBERINI BEES 

TJ^ MBLAZONED high upon the canopies 
■*-^ Above Saint Peter's sanctified repose, 
Hiving 'mid papal tombs in crested shows, 
Swarming on pillar and on haughty frieze. 
Cluster the proud old Barberini bees; 
Who live on incense and forget the rose, 
As they forget their brotherhood with those 
Dear humble buzzy fellows, overseas. 
Oh, tell me, little toilers, do ye faint 
Never for lowly beds of mignonette. 
Or mountain paths with gipsy flowers set? 
What honey lurks in porphyry and paint. 
Or what content in Summer days like these 
For vain immortal Barberini bees ! 



124 



BROTHER RENUNCIO 

A LL day a monk in saffron frock 
•^"^ Unlocks the cloister door, 
Nor lifts his dark ascetic eyes 
Above the chapel floor; 
- Ah, Spring from veins of Italy can never distant be, 
While fair the dim Campagna green slopes down- 
ward to the sea ! — 



All day he takes the pilgrims' dole 

For sight of tomb or shrine. 
Nor heeds the cypress tall unto 

The lilac soft incline ; 

- Ah, love 'neath sky of Italy is never far astray, 
And sweet the cloister-lilac's breath at Angelas will 

pray ! — 

At even-song his beads he tells 

Before a faded saint; 
The impulse of his pallid dream 

A Magdalen in paint; 

- Ah, night more lovely than the day embraces Italy, 
The nightingale's enamoured song completes her 

witchery ! — 



125 



BROTHER REN UNCI 

He does not see the promised land 

That to his feet descends, 
Amid the Winter violets 
Begins and never ends; 
-Ah, Italy and Paradise are near for such as he, 
And in this blind immortal's hand lies now the pos- 
tern key ! — 

My brother, failing heaven here, 
Should you miss heaven there, 
How sad through purgatory's fear 
To miss life everywhere ! 
-Ah, life in hearts of Italy, makes mock of bended 

knee, 
And o'er the monastery wall her birds are nesting 
free ! — 



126 



THE SONG OF A SLAVE TO HER IDOL 

A TEMPLE girl of Love's blind worship, I! 
, "^^ No wakeful muezzin calls me to my prayer, 
For in a million trivial servitudes, 

Wherever Love is, I — the slave, am there ! 

No golden bangles mark my postures light or ankle 

bells the alien eye discerns, 
Yet 'neath a fragile minaret unseen, my own heart in 

the rising incense burns. 

Let Azzan barter in the gay bazar and slip her veil 

from her enticing face, 
Or in some dim seraglio's musky dream the favourite 

yield her slender body's grace — 

Where brown-armed water boys will surely pass, 
Fatma and Lalal lie within the shade — 

Sweeter than yasmin breath the temple's spell upon 
the bending slave of Love is laid ! 

I serve the Idol more than stars serve heaven, 
Since dawns betray the passion of the sky — 

Within Love's mosque I feed the quenchless fire. 
By day, by night, a temple girl am I ! 



127 



A SONG OF MARINERS 

^tV\^HAT wind shall bear us to the shade? 

Our eyes go blind 
With struggle of the sea and wearisome mirage ; 

No port we find, 
And we are faint to guide our craft by any star. 

O Fate be kind ! 
No more of siren songs we dream — 

Or Circe's breast, 
Or golden apples of remote Hesperides, 

Or guerdon blest, 
We only cry for silence and eternal shade 

Whose heart is rest. 
Where lie those isles of afternoon, 

Whose shadows lean 
To heal us from these glaring glamours of the 
sea? 

Whose glooms of green 
Shall fill a sense nor love nor beauty filled before 

By heard or seen?" 

Thus sang a mariner who held his forward watch un- 
til he died, 
And thus the vague pursuing voices of the waves 
replied — 



128 



A SONG OF MARINERS 

" Turn back, turn back ye Mariners ! 

Your compass learn! 
False lies your course ! The lands ye seek, the 
shoals of youth 

Your taffrails spurn 
For ocean's idle leagues, and wilful wandering, 

Drift far astern ! 
For visions of white fleeting sails 

Ye steered aside 
From pensive isles of far forgotten shade; 

For roaming wide 
And hungry sea birds lonely following, — the 
sport 

Of witless tide. 
Endless and futile is your quest! 

'Neath moons that wane, 
And burning noons, across this desert of the 
sea 

Ye voyage in vain. 
For forward ye shall never find the golden isles 

Of youth again ! " 



129 



THE SUPPLIANT 

pOET, thy mouth full of flame-curving kisses, 

Parian mouth, breathing sweeter than lute 
strings — 
Lures my heart far from my amber-eyed shepherd, 
Seeking thy threshold ! 

Sadder than burden of song-weary Sibyl 
Weighed down my eyelids by love-laden vision, 
Victimised I by implacable Cypris, 
Mad but divinely. 

Dancing my dance of ineffable pleading, 
All my white body a prayer of the senses, 
Lift me up ! Bend to thy suppliant kneeling, 
Breast on breast cleaving! 

Pity me tranced in immutable posture, — 
Hush beyond wonder, impassioned beseeching — 
Let the Gods answer, or smite me forever 
Dead at thine altar ! 



130 



CASSANDRA ON LEAVING TROY 

T AUGH on, laugh on, ye faithless Trojans, laugh! 

The while your city's bitter doom fulfilled 
Sees rampired wall and palace chamber razed, 
The shattered peristyles in ashes laid, 
As she ye mocked for witless prophesied ! 

God Apollo, did it not suffice 

To curse the maiden of your golden choice. 
But she from overthrow must fail preserve 
Her country's weal ? 

Mad? Yes, and justly so; 
As I behold my augured fears blazed forth 
By light of burning Trojan citadels. 
Would I were mad and so escaped disgrace 
Of free-born woman, falsifier named ! 

1 knew ye felt no boding, when dismayed 
I bade ye tremble at the first faint sound 

Of Helen's name that troubled Argos heard — 
Whose magic, warriors turned not with their spears, 
Nor could avert with blazoned shields of wise 
Device, and cunning wrought. I warned ye smite 
That name of Helen, — at which women paled 
In dread to find their beauty less than hers. 
That name men whispered bodeless of its power 
Or sins unsinned unto her Grecian grace — 

131 



CASSANDRA ON LEAVING TROY 

Imagined beauty, myth of Ilium, 

Than all their loveliest loves more fair ! Laugh, Troy ! 

Laugh on ! Now is Cassandra mad indeed ! 

What tears so mad as laughter like to yours? 

Till now untold my fate, save to deaf ears 
Of Gods at sacrificial altars red ; 
Hear me, and may avenging Deity 
And mindful Fury hear! For ne'er my guide 
Was Mercury, the patron of deceit. 
The fairest of all Priam's daughters I, 
Cassandra, wide and triple famed for dire > 
Misfortune, beauty and divining power. 
Nor arms most lustrous, horses panoplied 
For war, seas with their gleaming galleys sown, 
The spangled night, the sacred ilex groves 
More beautiful, — her suitors swore, — than She, 
The maiden Priestess of Fatality ! 
Apollo's Priestess of the cool green shrine — 
Minerva's suppliant, by whose desire 
Corcebus was compelled, — a warrior called 
To Priam's aid in 'leaguered Troy's relief, 
Who laid his arms and prowess at her feet. 
His suit dismissed by death to those low halls 
Of sunless shades, next Prince Othryoneus, 
An ally hither come from Thrace, — besought 
Her for her beauty, asked no other dower ; 
But he by Idomeneus fatal struck, 
To Pluto's house of tears was forced retire. 
Beauty accursed, with evil Helen shared ! 

132 



CASSANDRA ON LEAVING TROY 

Apollo looking on his Priestess found 
Her fair, and offered her whatever prize 
She coveted for favour of her love. 

For gift of prophecy I did consent 

With Loxias — which once conferred, I swift 

Withdrew and mocked the Tempter, who had sought 

Of his most holy altar's ministrant 

Ignoble use. And then, since it was held 

Too all unworthy of a God, re-take 

What he had given, on hid revenge intent 

He did constrain a kiss exchanged. O kiss 

Of doom, I dared not from a God refuse ! 

By whose excess of poisoned favour sweet 

Confused, my lips shall never cease to mourn! 

Incursive Deity, impassioning 

Each in-drawn breath of men until they deem 

Themselves the Lords of women evermore — 

Spirit of wanton Capture — woe to thee ! 

For since the Gods avenge their lov^ denied, 

The altars are o'erturned, the Vestals wronged, 

Both Gods and mortals to delirium brought 

By mingling things of heaven with things of earth. 

Woe for the kiss of Fate, that baneful kiss ! 

Woe to Cassandra, knowing all too late 

Giving, he took. O tragedy of Love! 

In that ill-reasoned kiss of God to maid, 

The gift of riddles dark read plain was hers, 

But faith of all men stolen from her truth. 



133 



CASSANDRA ON LEAVING TROY 

Aid me, ye Muses ! Tune despairing lyres, 

And chaunt the direful song of Loxias' kiss ! 

Nor cease until his golden arrow-tips 

Have pierced the coldest, most reluctant heart! 

Sing how the Sun God all the sky suffused 

With swooning stupors, ere he bodeful pressed 

His melting passion through her scorched lips, 

As were the glory of Immortals blurred 

Within, yet at that fiery contact made, 

As mortal with a mortal one, — - then left 

Her frantic, raving on discredited ! 

Almighty Jove ! O is it God-like thus 

Vengeance to wreak on hapless maids who shun 

Those pleasures interdicted by thy laws — 

Unfitting twixt a mortal and a God ? 

Such vengeful lust the wild boar well be-seems, 

Whose prey slow-gliding him by stealth eludes 

Along some sedgy river iris-fringed. 

Because I would not turn from altar fires 

To grant the madness of a mortal flame, 

Apollo raged! The kiss he ruthless set 

As price of his prophetic gift divine. 

How was a virtuous Vestal to withhold? 

When the Gods sue, resistance nought avails. 

She served her Gods, he urged, — then why not serve 

Her God for his delight? These lithe limbs bent 

In sacrificial grace, — these amorous lips. 

These Venus-haunted breasts, — why should she waste 

In barren service of a common shrine? 



134 



CASSANDRA ON LEAVING TROY 

Apollo mocked such infamy — and kissed — 
Then ere his radiant way pursued, he spake — 

" And so, frail urn of mortal beauties,— glad 
Thou would'st proclaim the hidden future? Warn 
Of hateful war and fatal lightning flash, 
Of seas tumultuous engulfing ship 
And mariner to death? These portents dread 
Prefer with insight ominous to divulge. 
Rather than life of undistracted love 
In present nuptials with a craving God? 
Rather than him thine arms would clasp embraced 
His laurelled altars chill, serve him afar — 
Nor feel within thee stir those fires that break 
The fecund Spring to blessing? Forces loosed 
That wing the sandals of the languid streams 
As hasted messengers to rise and run? 
Through fruitless vintage cause the life blood flow, 
That fond libations may be purple poured. 
And swell the store of blossoms for the bee, 
Lest pure white honey fail, to appease the shrmes? 
Such powers as from Olympus' throne the Gods 
Descending, deign on mortals loved bestow? 
O Wayward One ! Be it as thou hast willed ! 
Most melancholy madness shall be thine. 
And hostile presage lie upon that breast, ^ ^ 

Where might have lain young gods with all their Sire s 
Immortal attributes. Thine eyes, close veiled 
To splendours of his devastating flame. 
Be glazed by burning cities, reek of gore, 

135 



CASSANDRA ON LEAVING TROY 

Disaster murk, — nor shall thy madness serve 
To save one city from the appointed doom, 
One armed host from ruin's shame; though men 
Shall surely weep — too late — the augured ill 
Thy tongue deplores ! " 

Alas for truth inspired! 
As no blind beggar by the city gate 
Would spurn the aid of open eyes, the world 
Refusing sight of me, I am by wile 
Of Loxias thus deprived to avert from Troy 
The dread catastrophe ; for what shall be 
Already is. Futile the bellowing bulls 
Of sacrifice, and foresight that but serves 
To illumine hope deceived and labour lost! 
Pleasure and peace are gone in ill foreknown. 
No agony of mine can right the wrong, 
Nor saving sight procure immunity 
For them, most holy in my love. A sad 
And wretched Priestess, I — of altars lone, 
A vestal blameless, — save that I was fair; 
No frenzied watcher of the chariot race. 
Hot-flushed inciter of the flying steeds — 
No Nymph enticing Satyrs to the dance 
When Pan pipes up the vernal lure of Spring, 
No Coryphee of Aphrodite's train, 
Nor dew-drenched worshipper upon the hills 
In Dionysus' fawn-skinned bacchanal, 
But solemn-browed, uplifting unto Fate 
A consecrated gaze oft veiled in tears. 
Inspired sole by grim Eumenides 

136 



CASSANDRA ON LEAVING TROY 

I am declared, brain-sick and sore distraught, 

When overtaken by prophetic throes 

Inflicted by the God; like to that bird 

For Itys, Itys ! wailing unassuaged, 

Incarnate Sorrow, she, to whose lament 

The Gods gave wings and voice to plain men's griefs 

Forever ! 

From lips of divination 
111 only comes, no boon, the mockers cry — 
As were the sacred Prophetess in league 
With Hades' rulers sworn. In vain I warned ! 
The bridal woe of Paris, senseless cause 
For siege prolonged and fateful destiny 
Of war, foretold with eyes to heaven raised, 
My hands weighed by your chains. In vain I raved ! 
Mad was I called, the oracles ignored — 
But their fulfillment when did Time refute? 
The siege once brought to pass, I refuge took 
In great Minerva's temple, — but for nought, 
Since impious Ajax, ravisher abhorred ! 
Seduced by rumour of my beauty cursed — 
Did violate the laws of all the Gods 
And robbed the shrines to drag me forth; which 

straight 
The irate Goddess terrible avenged, 
From Jupiter demanding thunderbolts 
And 'mid the ensuing floods the Locrian hosts 
Destroying to the last. She still requires 
Them bring each year as tribute, maidens twain 
To serve her temple by most menial rites, 

137 



CASSANDRA ON LEAVING TROY 

In tattered rags attired, their hair close shorn ; 

But even griefs Hke those Cassandra bore 

Could not preserve her from the Argive King. 

Victorious Agamemnon had sought out 

The vanquished Priam's child for one more shame; 

Drawn by no indiscriminate lot, as were 

The lesser Phrygian maids, by chance conferred, 

But for the love her stricken beauty moved, 

Torn from the unprotecting shrines and given 

As slave and paramour to Hellas' Lord — 

Hapless, prophetic, beautiful, — Alas 

For love unconquerable that enslaves 

The Conqueror ev'n as his meanest thrall ! 

Whom neither the Immortals may evade, 

Nor man, their changing suppliant of a day. 

Wail for your daughter Hecuba ! Wail forth 

The curse of beauty drawing curse of love ! 

While yet she lives, shrill lamentations raise 

And beat your breast with woe funereal ; 

Since over her no mournful dirge shall sound 

Whose limbs on alien shores shall ne'er be wrapped 

In decent garments by maternal hands. 

Her pallid corpse a feast for ravening dogs. 

By Phrygian unbelief the sacred shrines 

Are now despoiled, their images profaned — 

My ov/n undoing swiftly verified 

At pleasure of the Argive Potentate. 

For nothing pray ! Spare now your chorused hymn, 

Your impotent libations cease to pour! 

138 



CASSANDRA ON LEAVING TROY 

Too late the festive dance and heifer slain, 
For nought reviled the injustice of male love 
And face of Helen, Sorceress malign ! 

Yet there is retribution with the Gods, 

For Jupiter and Loxias are both 

To mortal matters lending high concern ; 

Now dizzy anguish mounts within my breast, 

Prophetic rage o'erwhelms, and I perceive 

Dardania commemorative rear 

A votive temple, sacred to all maids 

Who serve the Gods, nor 'neath the yoke of men 

Are willed to live ; revolting from their lust, 

And consecrate to utmost chastity. 

A babbler I, for this? Lie-monger called? 

Let me be silent led to my captivity — 

Calamity predestined by the Gods ! 

O Woe, O Earth, O God Apollo ! May 

My spirit soon hear echoes of that stream — 

Scamander river dear to infancy. 

On whose green shores my few bright hours were 

nursed ! 
O agony of vision vainly borne ! 
Though none believe the oracles poured forth, 
Troy and her slain by me shall be avenged. 
Triumphant to these nuptials sinister 
Departing Lord of Hellas, now I come — 
More fatal bride than ever Helen proved, 
No Priestess but a herald stern of Death, 
Seeing my dusty bed in darkness made, 

139 



CASSANDRA ON LEAVING TROY 

This peerless head crowned by one act supreme. 
I come my Dead! Thrice shining Erebus, 
For me illumined by familiar Shades ! 
My garland and my gold-embroidered robe, 
My wand and myrtle wreath are cast aside, 
Renounced the last insignia of the Gods, 
Ere I, the sainted of Apollo, come 
All unappalled to accost the gates of Night. 
For, Mistress of divining power, I know 
The end for Agamemnon now prepared. 
Let Hades and all those beneath the earth 
Be conscious of my words, for he shall fall, 
If he return, by his supplanter's hand; 
The house of Atreus be in ruins laid. 
I see it plainer than their galley sails 
That nodding summon from my native shore. 
Mad, mad ! ye call me, to the last defy 
My solemn prophecy, — yet ye shall see 
This proud despoiler in his crimson bath 
Lie weltering beneath Aegisthus' blade, 
While his abominable she-wolf slakes 
Her thirst for gore with mine, and this despised 
Cassandra, once for all, dismisses mute; 
A bloody-taloned bird with clashing wings 
That idly beat the wide ill-omened air. 
Farewell, O ashen city of disdain! 
Until the infuriate Erinnyes 
Shall right my wrongs, on Troy I look my last ! 
Almighty Jove, o'er all supreme, behold 
How tides of blood my oracles confirm ! 

140 



CASSANDRA ON' LEAVING TROY 

Minerva, patroness of cities, heed ! 
Bereaved of freedom and of home I go, 
My torch put out ! 

But throughout Time avenged, 
Cassandra's curse shall evermore descend; 
Hers be the fate of wisdom and of all 
Who share the burden of the visioned Seer ! 
By men the truth shall be forever spurned, 
The base-born tongue of flattery preferred, 
And unbelief envenom all the world ! 



141 



MAY 6 1913 



